A YEAR has passed away, checquered with varied and exciting
scenes, since the events transpired which are recorded in the
preceding chapters of this tale. The schooner had effectually
baffled the pursuing gun-brig by her superior sailing, and before night
had left her so far astern as to show only her topsails above the
horizon. The ensuing morning, the “Wing of the Wind” had before
her and around her only the wide blue ocean and the arching skies.
She steered a southerly course for many days, and after a quick
passage reached her destination. Here the captain once more
mingled in the strife of battle, and gained many signal victories.
Faulcon, who soon became a skilful sailor, was with him in all his
battles as his first lieutenant, and contributed not a little, by his
prowess, in achieving the brilliant successes that distinguished the
cruises of “The Wing of the Wind.”

At length the war ended, and the navy was ordered to be laid up.
On the day this command was issued, Lightfoot returned to port with
a valuable prize. The authorities went on board to take possession,
when he demanded to be paid for his services and those of his crew
during the war.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I have long and faithfully served you in
your struggle for independence. You have achieved it. I have
asked you for none of the pay due me. You owe me more than

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twenty thousand dollars. Pay me and I will surrender my prize.
Refuse, and I shall appropriate its specie to my own use!”

The agents of the constitutional government, surprised at this bold
position assumed by the American adventurer, returned to the shore
and made their report. It was received by the authorities with
indignation, and a message was at once despatched to the rebellious
captain, at once to surrender his prize and the command of his
schooner, and appear before them on shore, or he should be fired
into from the batteries, within point blank shot of which the schooner
and her prize lay.

Lightfoot smiled scornfully at this summons, and ordering the
messenger to be put in irons, commanded his men to proceed and
convey the specie, of which there were twenty-one kegs in silver
Spanish pesos, from the prize into the schooner. While this was
doing, he gave orders to have everything in readiness to slip to sea
at a moment's notice.

The detention of their messenger led the authorities to suspect
some foul play, and taking a position upon the battlements of the
fortress, where they could see down into the vessels, they were
enabled, by the aid of spy-glasses, to comprehend all that was going
forward.

“They seem to be watching us closely, Faulcon,” said Lightfoot,
after regarding them a few moments. “Their guns will soon begin
to bark!”

“You are playing a bold part, Lightfoot,” answered Faulcon,
gravely. “I am not desirous of bringing their fire upon us, or engaging
in a quarrel with the government. We shall lose all our
laurels and honors acquired the past year. I am inclined to pacific
measures. The government will pay you in good time. Let us at
once yield, and place affairs on their former amicable footing!”

“I am in no humor to be insulted and dictated to by these proud
and vain Colombian patriots. They make us their tools, and then
cast us off when the war has ended. If I surrender the prize, I shall
next have to surrender the schooner. I shall be turned ashore without
vessel or money, and have my way to make up again into the
world. No, Faulcon, while we have a deck beneath our feet let us
hold it. It is my intention, as soon as the last keg of dollars is placed
in the schooner, to set the crew of prisoners ashore in their own
boats, then weigh anchor and run away with the schooner, as a part
of the debt due to me!”

“You will at once place yourself in the position of a pirate! The
government will proclaim you such to the world!”

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“Let it! What is in a name. It will not make me a pirate unless
I choose to capture under the flag!”

“I am not satisfied with this course you contemplate. If you are
going to leave the harbor, I will resign my rank and quit the
schooner!”

“I will not accept it, my dear fellow. You are too sensitive in
little points. But hear that! We have no time to discuss the matter
now. Wait till we get into blue water!”

As he spoke, a shot, the flash of which had been seen by Lightfoot,
who had been all the while closely watching the battery, whizzed
above their heads, and buried itself in the main-mast of the Spanish
ship, that lay alongside of the Wing of the Wind. As the anchor
was already hove short, it was soon free from the bottom, while as
if by magic, the schooner was enveloped in a cloud of canvass. The
lashings which confined her to her prize, were at the same instant
severed, and gracefully doubling her bows, she flung a flowing sheet
broad to the wind, and glided out from the harbor. The fire of the
batteries was tremendous. The shot flew thickly around her, and
passed through her sails, but she held steadily on her course without
firing a gun.

“They are poor marksmen, and have bad powder, these Colombians,”
said Lightfoot, laughing: “well, they can't say but they have
done their best to stop me. That last shot fell short a hundred
fathom; they can't do any thing more. We have fairly escaped
them. I fear that slow match, Westwood,” he added, turning to his
second lieutenant, “must have gone out. Are you sure you left it
alight?”

“Yes,” answered the officer, “and laid the train with my own
hand!”

“Yes, there rises the smoke through her hatches. See the flame
leap up after it. Now, my good friends ashore, you have not only
lost your beautiful Wing of the Wind, your Ala del Viento, but the
Spanish prize-ship!”

While he was speaking, the prize from which they were about a
mile distant, became enveloped in smoke and flames. Red tongues
of fire climbed the rigging, and entwined themselves about the yards,
and gaining the main-royal mast-head, leaped fiercely into the sky
like serpents. Several boats which had put off from the shore on
the first appearance of the smoke issuing from the hold, now lay at a
distance, the occupants appalled and gazing upon the work of ruin
they could no longer hope to arrest.

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Suddenly the flames were put out by dense volumes of black smoke
that rolled upward from the deck, like clouds from the crater of a
volcano. It was followed by a loud report like the explosion of a
thunder-bolt, and flaming spars and fiery fragments in hosts, mingled
with showers of spars and burning cinders, were discharged hundreds
of feet into the air. The sound of the falling missiles fell upon
the ears of those on board the schooner like the rushing noise of a
hurricane sweeping along the sea. Then all was still. A huge murkey
wreath of brown smoke floating slowly away from the scene,
casting beneath upon the water a shadow like night, alone remained as a
memento of that work of destruction. Where the ship had a few moments
before rode proudly in all the bravery of her towering masts, was only
the waveless surface of the harbor dotted here and there by a charred
fragment of the wreck of fire.

The faces of all on board the schooner were made grave by the sublimity
of the scene they had witnessed. Lightfoot was silent and thoughtful
for several moments afterwards; for the spectacle of a noble structure
falling into ruin, fills the soul of the most inconsiderate with sadness—it
so startling and eloquently points human nature to its own end.

“That was a brave and yet melancholy sight,” said Lightfoot, at length
speaking and addressing his lieutenant.

“Yes, and I think the Colombians should thank you for getting up for
them such a grand exhibition of fire-works,” answered Westwood.

“They would have been better satisfied, doubtless, if it had been in the
night,” answered Lightfoot in a gay tone. “But let it pass. We are
once more upon the open sea, and this time in a vessel of our own, that
owes no allegiance to any flag!”

“Do you douse the Colombian?”

“I have hardly decided whether to keep it flying where it is, or take
some fancy flag of my own.”

“But what is to be done with Mr. Faulcon, sir?” inquired Westwood
in an under tone. “He never will consent to sail with you under a free
flag!”

“I will look after him. I command my own vessel. I shall talk with
him by-and-by, after he gets a little calmed down. No, as you say, he is
rather too particular, especially since he heard not long ago, that the merchant
whom he believed he had murdered, was not dead, but had recovered
from his wounds. This news at once made a new man of him!”

“Yes, I saw it did plainly. He is as cheerful now as he was before
gloomy! Well, it is natural a man should feel better when he finds he
is not a murderer after all!”

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“Yes, and this knowledge has made Faulcon too virtuous for me!”

“You had better have let him gone ashore when he wished to!”

“It was because he wished to, that I would not let him. It vexed me
to see him show a feather so much higher than mine. Besides, I think I
can prevail on him to remain with me. He is a good officer, and has the
bravery of a lion. He is too valuable a person for me to part with
easily!”

“Well, you may succeed, but I doubt it. What are you to do
with this Spanish gentleman and his beautiful daughter in the
cabin?”

“I hardly know. But that does not concern you. I shall look
after my prisoners!”

“It is likely the old man would ransom himself at a round price!”

“I shall see to him, Lieutenant Westwood. Attend to the duties
of the ship!”

The lieutenant went forward with the careless air of a good-natured
bluff rogue, who cared no more for sharp words than for a sharp nor-wester,
while Lightfoot, after looking around and taking a glance at
the compass, and giving an order or two, descended into the cabin.
He opened the door of a state-room on the starboard side, in which
sat Faulcon upon a chest, and heavily ironed.

Before explaining this circumstance, we will return again to the
moment when the schooner was getting underweigh to run from the
harbor, and when Faulcon refused to remain on board and share in
her piratical departure. Having tendered his resignation, which
Lightfoot refused to accept, Faulcon was about to reply and repeat
his resolution not to stay on board, when the firing from the battery
called Lightfoot's attention. Faulcon, without a word to him, sprung
into the stern boat, and began to let it down at one end, while a man
whom he called to sprung to the other fall. The creaking of the
davit-blocks caught the ear of the captain, who immediately discovered
the attempted flight of his first officer. With an eye that
literally blazed with anger, he sprung aft to the taffrail, and leveling
a pistol at the head of the seaman at the bow fall, he ordered him on
peril of his life to hoist again. At the same moment he directed
three or four men who were near to spring into the boat and arrest
Faulcon.

The boat had by this time descended within reach of the water,
and as Faulcon stood in the stern, letting the rope glide through his
hands, he saw suddenly appear at the cabin windows, which he was
so near that he could both touch them and look into them, a young

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and wondrously beautiful maiden, who had been taken prisoner in
the Spanish ship, and whom, with her father, Lightfoot had placed,
after the capture, in his own cabin. Her face expressed alarm and
eager solicitude. It spoke what she wished of him more eloquently
than these few words which she uttered in a low thrilling tone:

“Oh, sir, if you are going to the land, leave me not! You only
have been kind to me. Save me and my father!”

“I will not leave you! I will remain for your protection,” answered
Faulcon, in the same under tone. “I thank you, lady, for
reminding me of my duty!”

“Thanks, noble sir! I overheard your words on deck, and I
trembled for my fate, and for my father, should you depart!”

“Be courageous, and trust in me,” he answered, firmly. Then
raising his voice, he answered Lightfoot, as the men were reluctantly
(for Faulcon was a favorite with the men) descending the fall to
obey his order,

“Do not take the trouble to come down after me, my lads. I find
I cannot escape, and I surrender myself prisoner!”

“Hoist away the boat with him!” cried Lightfoot to the men, as
they alighted in the bottom. “Well, sir, you did not succeed, and
by-and-bye you will thank me that you did not,” he said to Faulcon,
as he stepped from the boat on deck; “but I cannot trust you till we
get in blue water. You are of too much value to me, my dear
Faulcon, to let you get off in this way. So you must pardon me if I
take care that you are kept secure until we get off too far for you to
think of swimming to the land. Bring irons this way, Westwood,
and let Mr. Faulcon try the bracelets for a few hours!”

All this was said in a tone of ironical pleasantry, underneath which
lay bitter feelings of hostility.

The young officer quietly suffered himself to be ironed, and then
being conducted below, was secured in his state-room. This treatment
drew from him no other emotion than contempt for its author,
and a certain feeling of satisfaction that by remaining he had it in his
power to become the protector of a lovely girl, who had appealed to
him with looks and words too eloquent for him to resist. In the
capture of the Spanish ship he had saved her from the rude and free
license of such a scene of lawless excitement by his own personal
influence, and during the three days she and her father had been in
the schooner, his protection had been her safeguard. He felt deeply
interested in her, though not with that deep feeling which has its
origin in the heart. But now that she had thrown herself upon his

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protection, as the only arm upon which she could lean, now that she
was in the power of a man who had cast off allegiance to all government,
he felt awakened towards her in his bosom an emotion kindred
to love.

“I will save her or die with her,” was his internal resolve, while
he was gazing upon her beautiful face, as she tearfully implored him
not to leave her.

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