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Suppose the day to be a fine one — calm, placid, and without
a cloud — even such a day as frequently comes to cheer us in
the benign and bud-compelling month of April; — suppose the
seas to be smooth; at rest, and slumbering without emotion; with
a fair bosom gently heaving, and sending up only happy murmurs,
like an infant's after a late passion of tears; suppose the hour
to be a little after the turn of noon, when, in April, the sun, only
gently soliciting, forbears all ardency; sweetly smiles and softly
embraces; and, though loving enough for comfort, is not so oppressive
in his attachments as to prompt the prayer for an iceberg
upon which to couch ourselves for his future communion; supposing
all these supposes, dear reader, then the voyager, running
close in for the land — whose fortune it is to traverse that portion
of the Atlantic which breaks along the shores of Georgia and the
Carolinas — beholds a scene of beauty in repose, such as will be
very apt to make him forgetful of all the dangers he has passed!

We shall say nothing of the same region, defaced by strifes of

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storm and billow, and blackened by the deluging vans of the
equinox.


“Wherefore tax the past,
For memories of sorrow? wherefore ask,
Of the dark Future, what she grimly keeps
Of terrors in reserve?”
Enough for us that the Present holds for us delicious compensation;
that the moment is our own, exclusively for beauty; —
that the charm of the prospect before us is beyond question; at
once prompting the desire to describe, yet baffling all powers of
description.

Yet why describe? — since, as Byron deplores —

“Every fool describes in these bright days.”

In what, then, consists the beauty of the scene? Let us explain,
and catalogue, at least, where we may not be able to describe.
You are aware, dear readers, that you may set forth, on
a periagua, or, if you like it better, a sloop, a schooner, or a trim
little steamer; and, leaving the shores of Virginia, make your
way along those of the Carolinas and Georgia, to Florida, almost
entirely landlocked the whole voyage; all along these shores, the
billows of the sea, meeting with the descending rivers, have
thrown up barrier islands and islets, that fence in the main from
its own invasions. Here are guardian terraces of green,

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covered with dense forests, that rise like marshalled legions along
the very margins of the deep. Here are naked sand-dunes,
closing avenues between, upon which you may easily fancy that
the fairies gambol in the moonlight. Some are sprinkled with
our southern palm-tree, the palmetto; others completely covered
with this modest growth; others again with oak, and pine, and
cypress; and there are still others, whose deep, dense, capacious
forests harbor the red deer in abundance; and, skirting many
of these islets, are others in process of formation; long stripes of
marsh, whose perpetual green, contrasting, yet assimilating beautifully
with the glare of sunlight on the sea, so relieves the eye
with a sense of sweetness, beauty, freshness, and repose, that you
never ask yourself the idle question, of what profit this marsh —
its green that bears neither fruits nor flowers — its plumage
that brings no grateful odor —its growth without market value?
Enough, you say or feel, that, in the regions where you find it,
it is a beauty and delight.

And so, you navigate your bark through avenues of sea between
these islets and the main; through winding channels where
the seas lie subdued, their crests under curb, and resting in beds
of green and solitude, only tenanted by simple herds of deer, or
by wandering pilgrims of the crane, the curlew, the pelican and
duck.

Beyond, the great ocean plain stretches wide and far; and even
when it rolls in storm, and its billows break in fury along the
islet shores, not half a mile away — all here is safe! On either
hand, the sheltering nook invites your prow; quiet harbors open
for your reception, and offer security. Here, the creek that
creeps like a shining serpent through banks of green; here, the
bay that has been scooped out in a half circle, as if purposely
to persuade you to harborage — are both present, affording refuge;
the great oaks grow close down by the ocean's side, and
hang over with such massive shadows, that you see the bath and
the boudoir together. You have but to plunge in, and no Naiad
takes offence; and, lifting yourself to the shores by the help of
that great branch that stretches above the water, there you may
resume your fig-leaves with impunity, assured that no prudish
eyes have been shocked by your eccentric exhibitions of a nude
Apollo!

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There is a wondrous charm in this exquisite blending of land
and water scape. It appeals very sweetly to the sympathies, and
does not the less excite the imagination because lacking in irregular
forms and stupendous elevations. Nay, we are inclined to
think that it touches more sweetly the simply human sensibilities.
It does not overawe. It solicits, it soothes, beguiles; wins
upon us the more we see; fascinates the more we entertain; and
more fully compensates than the study of the bald, the wild, the
abrupt and stern, which constitute so largely the elements in that
scenery upon which we expend most of our superlatives. Glide
through these mysterious avenues of islet, and marsh, and ocean,
at early morning, or at evening, when the summer sun is about to
subdue himself in the western waters; or at midnight, when the
moon wins her slow way, with wan, sweet smile, hallowing the
hour; and the charm is complete. It is then that the elements all
seem to harmonize for beauty. The plain of ocean is spread out,
far as the eye can range, circumscribed only by the blue walls of
Heaven, and watched by starry eyes, its little billows breaking
with loving murmur upon the islet shores — these, silvery light, as
swept for fairy footsteps, or, glowing in green, as if roofed for
loving hearts; trees, flowers, fragrance, smiling waters, and delicious
breezes, that have hurried from the rugged shores of the
Cuban, or the gradual slopes of Texas; or farther yet, from still
more beautiful gardens of the South, where Death himself never
comes but wrapped in fragrance and loveliness:—look where you
will, or as you will, and they unite for your conquest; and you
grow meek, yet hopeful; excited, yet satisfied; forgetful of common
cares; lifted above ordinary emotions; and, if your heart be
still a young one, easily persuaded to believe that the world is as
full of bliss as of beauty, and that Love may readily find a covert,
in thousands of sweet places of refuge, which God's blessing shall
convert into happiest homes. Go through these sweet, silent,
mysterious avenues of sea and islet, green plain, and sheltering
thicket, under the prescribed conditions, at early morning or
toward the sunset, or the midnight hour, and the holy sweetness
of the scene will sink into your very soul, and soften it to love
and blessing, even as the dews of heaven steal, in the night-time,
to the bosom of the thirsting plant, and animate it to new developments
of fruitfulness and beauty.

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And the scenery of the main partakes of the same character,
with but the difference of foliage. It spreads upward into the
interior, for near a hundred miles, a vast plain, with few inequalities
of surface, but wondrously wooded. If, on the one hand, the
islets, marshes, and savannahs, make an empire of sweetness and
beauty; not less winning are the evergreen varieties that checker
the face of the country on the other. Here are tracts of the noble
live oak, of the gigantic pine, of the ghostly cypress; groves of
each that occupy their several provinces, indicating as many varieties
of soil. Amid these are the crowned laurel, stately as a
forest monarch, the bay, the beech, the poplar, and the mulberry,
not to speak of thousands besides, distinguished either from their
use or beauty; and in the shade of these the dogwood flaunts in
virgin white; and the lascivious jessamine wantons over their tops
in sensuous twines, filling the air with fragrance; and the grape
hangs aloft her purple clusters, which she trains over branches
not her own, making the oak and the hickory sustain those fruits
which they never bear!

And so, in brief transition, you pass from mighty colonnades of
open woods to dense thickets which the black bear may scarcely
penetrate. At the time of which we propose to write, he is one
of the denizens of these regions; here, too, the panther still lurks,
watching the sheepfold or the deer! Here the beaver builds his
formidable dams in the solitude of the swamp, and the wolf and
the fox find their habitations safe. The streams are full of fish,
the forests of prey, the whole region a wild empire in which the
redman still winds his way, hardly conscious of his white superior,
though he already begins to feel the cruel moral presence, in the
instinctive apprehensions of his progress. And birds, in vast varieties,
and reptiles of the ground, “startlingly beautiful,” are tenants
still of these virgin solitudes. The great sea-eagle, the falcon,
the vulture; these brood in the mighty tree-tops, and soar as
masters of the air; the wild goose and duck lead their young
along the sedgy basins; the cormorant and the gull scream across
the waters from the marshy islets; and are answered, with cooing
murmurs, from myriads of doves that brood at noon in the deep
covert of bristly pines. The mock-bird, with his various melodies,
a feathered satirist, who can, however, forget his sarcasm in his
passion; the red-bird and the nonpareil, with softer and simpler

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notes, which may be merry as well as tender, but are never scornful;
the humming-bird, that rare sucker of sweets — himself a
flower of the air, — pioneer of the fairies — that finds out the best
flowers ere they come, and rifles them in advance; and — but
enough. Very beautiful, dear friends, to the eye that can see,
the susceptible heart, and the thoughtful, meditative mind, is the
beautiful but peculiar province to which we now invite your
footsteps.

But, as we can not behold all this various world at once, let us
persuade you to one fair locality, which you will find to contain,
in little, all that we have shown you in sweeping generalities.

You will suppose yourselves upon a well-wooded headland,
crowned with live oaks, which looks out upon a quiet bay, at
nearly equal distances between the waters of the Edisto and the
Ashley, in the province of South Carolina. The islets spread
between you and the sea, even as we have described them.
There are winding ways through which you may stretch your
sail, without impediment, into the great Atlantic. There are
lovely isles upon which you may pitch your tents, and take your
prey, while the great billows roll in at your very feet, and the
great green tree shelters you, all the while, from the sharp arrows
of the sun. You look directly down upon what, at the first glance,
would seem a lake: the lands appear to enclose it on every hand;
but there is a difference, you see, in the shade of yonder trees,
from those on the islet just before us, which is due to the fact that
an arm of the sea is thrust between; and here, on the other hand,
there are similar differences which denote a similar cause. But
our lake, or bay, is none the less sheltered or secure, because it
maintains such close connection with the mighty deeps. Faintly
afar, you may note, on the south and west, that there are still
other islets, keeping up a linked line with that which spreads in
front, and helping to form that unbroken chain, which, as I have
told you, spreads along the coast from the capes of Virginia to
those of the Floridian. The territory of the Floridian is under
its old Spanish master still; an ugly neighbor of our amiable
English, who tenant, in feeble colonies, these sylvan realms upon
the verge of which we stand. The period, I may mention here,
is the year of Grace (Grace be with us!) one thousand, six hundred
and eighty-four. Our English colonies of Carolina are less

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than thirty years old, and their growth has been a slow one. The
country is still, in great degree, a solitude!

The day — an April day — is one of those which good old
Herbert so happily describes, by its moral aspect, as

“A bridal of the earth and sky.”

We muse as we look, and say, with the poet —

“Here all but the spirit of man is divine.”

“But the red man,” say you. “He is here.” Ay, there are
his scattered tribes — they are everywhere; but feeble in all their
numbers. He is a savage, true; but savage, let me tell you —
and the distinction is an important one, arguing ignorance, not
will — savage rather in his simplicity than in his corruptions.
His brutality is rather that of barbarism than vice. He wanders
through these woods at seasons; here fishing to-day — to-morrow,
gone, leaving no trace; gone in pursuit of herds which he has
probably routed from old pasturages along these very waters.
For a hundred miles above, there rove the tribes of the Stono and
the Isundiga, the Edisto and the Seewee, the Kiawah, and the

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Ashepoo, all tributaries of the great nation of the Yemassee. You
will wander for weeks, yet meet not a man of them; yet, in the
twinkling of an eye, when you least fancy them, when you dream
yourself in possession of an unbroken solitude, they will spring up
beside the path, and challenge your attention by a guttural, which
may seem to you a welcome; or by a cri de guerre, which shall
certainly appear to you the whoop of death!

But, at this moment, the solitude seems intact. There are no
red men here. The very silence — so deep is the solitude —
seems to have a sound; and, brooding long on these headlands
without a companion, you will surely hear some voice speaking to
all your senses — perhaps many voices; especially if you do not
use your own. Your ears, that hunger naturally for human
sounds, will finally make them for themselves. Nay, you will
shout aloud, in your desperation, if only in search of echoes.

And, as if the better to satisfy us of the wondrous means of
shelter and security in this world of thicket and seclusion — adding
to the natural picturesque that of the moral — even as we
fancy this realm of solitude to be unbroken, there is a sound!
There are strokes of the paddle; there are human voices. A
canoe shoots out from the thickets to the east. It emerges from
a creek, which opens so modestly upon the bay that the entrance
to it remains unseen. The vessel is of cypress, one of those little
“dug-outs,” which the red men scooped for themselves with shells,
after having first charred with fire those portions of the timber
which they designed to remove. It skims over the waters like
an eggshell, carrying three persons as lightly as if it had no
freight. Two of them, one a man, the other a boy, work at the
paddles — not oars; the instrument is a short one, working close
at the side of the boat, even as the sea-fowl uses her feet. The
third, a man also, gray with years, sits at the stern, his head hanging
forward, his eyes brooding on the bottom of the canoe. They
are all red men. He at the stern is evidently a chief. He wears
a sort of coronal of feathers, and a gay crimson coat, hunting-shirt
fashion, with yellow fringes, evidently the manufacture of the
white man. There is a belt across his shoulders, from which
hangs the tomahawk; another about his waist, which secures his
knife; his right hand grasps bow and arrows, though the former
remains unbent, and the latter lie bundled together innocuous in

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their rattlesnake quiver. The man who paddles is a common
Indian, one of the vileins, of poor costume and mean aspect. The
boy is habited somewhat like the chief, with crimson hunting-shirt,
and belt about the waist, but he carries neither knife nor tomahawk.
A bow and arrows suited to his youth lie behind him at
the bottom of the boat. He may use them at yonder turn of the
bay, where you see a little flock of English ducks plying their
beaks along the sedgy shallows.

The canoe passes out of sight, winding through the sinuous
passages of yonder marsh; and for a moment the silence resumes
its sway along the shores.

But, almost as soon as they disappear, another party comes
upon the scene. And he is a white man. He glides down to the
headlands, looking out upon the bay, from the deep shelter of the
thicket on our left. From this covert he has watched the progress
of the canoe; and there were moments when it swept so closely
to his place of watch, that it would have been easy, in the case of
one so lithe and vigorous of frame, to have leaped into it at a
single bound.

The stranger might be thirty-five or forty; a hale, fresh-looking
Saxon, with a frank, manly face, bronzed rather darkly by
our southern sun, but distinguished only by traits of health. His
face is somewhat spoiled for beauty by an ugly scar upon one
cheek. He is armed with knife and pistols, which he carries in
his girdle. His dress is that of the sailor, loose duck trowsers, a
round-jacket, a hat of coarse straw with broad blue ribbons round
it, in which sticks an earthen pipe of some bulk, with a stem of
Carolina cane. In his hand he carries a ship's spyglass, which
seems to have done service.

Following the “dug-out” of the red men with keen eyes as they
sped, he continued to trace their progress with the glass until they
were wholly covered from sight by the dense marshes of the creek.
Then, thrusting his glass beneath his arm, he turned away, making
a sort of moody march along the shore.

“Blast the red rascals,” quoth he musingly, “I can make nothing
of them. That creek leads out to the sea. But there are
islands they can stop at, and I suppose mean to do so. There is
Kiawah, and a dozen more, that they may work up to in such a
light-going craft. Well, we may look for a plenty of 'em soon,

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now that fish begin to bite. But I want to be off before they
come. I 've no belief in the redskins anyhow, and want to keep
my own skin sound. Do n't want to be stuck full of arrows;
do n't want to be fried alive in pitch-pine. A Spanish dance
rather, with a score of pikes at the rear, to keep one in motion
where there 's no music!”

And the sturdy Englishman, for he was a genuine John Bull
and of a good order, took the pipe from his hat-band, replenished
the mill from his pocket, kindled his tinder, and throwing himself
down in a thicket, proceeded to smoke, taking out his pipe occasionally
to soliloquize. We gather up some of his random talks,
as they may help us in our own progress in this veracious
history.

“No, I 've no faith in these redskins. They 're at peace, they
say. Oh yes! and will smoke any quantity of tobacco in their
calumets, making their treaties and putting away their presents.
But it 's a sort of peace that do n't pay for the parchment. Just
so long as the colony's strong enough to lick 'em, and no longer,
will they keep the promise. It 's only when they see that they
can 't outnumber you — when they can count a bagnet for every
bow — that they 've any Christian bowels for peace. I wonder
what chance I 'd have here, in this lonesome spot, if these three
redskins now had come upon me napping. Would n't they have
been working in my wool, without saying `By your leave, brother'?
The red devils! call them human? I 'd as soon trust a monkey,
or a sucking tiger, in the matter of human bowels and affection!”

And the soliloquist lapsed away, after this speech, into that
dreamy sort of condition, which tobacco is so well calculated to
inspire, in which the mind is rather disposed to play than work,
or, at all events, in which it rather broods than cogitates. His
pipe exhausted, he rose, emptied the bowl of its ashes, stuck the
stem into his hat-band, braced his leather girdle closer to his
waist by a notch, and, after a long gaze out upon the sea, sauntered
away slowly into thicker woods.

As we follow him, we see that he makes his way through a sort
of labyrinth. Such thickets afford at all times a temporary cover;
but he so wound about in the present instance, took up so many
clues, and made such circuits, that, did we not follow him so

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closely, we should never, of ourselves, be able to track his progress
to his fastness.

This lies in a still deeper thicket which stretches down to a
creek. Here he has a den which a bear might select, fenced in
by a close shrubbery, overshadowed by great trees, vines interlacing
them, and, as it were, wrapping them up into a mass which
never allowed a sunbeam to penetrate. Art has done something
to make the place snug enough for shelter from the weather.
There is a rude hut of poles, covered with bark; within it, there
is a box, an iron pot, a gridiron, and a jug. An old tarpaulin hat
and coat hang from the same branches. There is a light shotgun
in a cypress hollow; and, from all you see, you conclude that
our solitary has arranged for an abode that seems destined for
continuance awhile, and has been in use perhaps a month or two
already.

From this cabin he detaches hooks, line, and tackle, for fishing,
and takes his way down to the creek. There, snug in close harbor,
lies a skiff, of European build, light enough for a damsel to
manage. He embarks, glides down the stream, finds his way into
the bay already described, and, crossing toward a recess made by
the projection of two arms of the marsh, proceeds to anchor and
to cast his line. The position he has chosen is one to render him
safe from any shaft or shot from the shore; and we must not forget
to mention that his light gun lies convenient across the thwarts
of the boat. Satisfied that he has taken all due precautions, he
yields himself eagerly to the sport before him.

He may have been thus engaged for more than an hour, when
he started up suddenly, and his whole countenance assumed an
expression of intense interest. A dull, heavy sound was heard
reverberating along the waters.

“A shot!” he cries, “and from a brazen muzzle.”

His line is instantly drawn in — his anchor. He no longer
heeds the fish. He has had some sport. There are twenty
shining sides that glisten at the bottom of the boat. There are
sundry innocent victims that seem very much out of their proper
depths of water and security. But, now, he gives them neither
eye nor thought. His lines are in, his paddles out; his lusty sinews
are braced to eager exertion. He speeds once more across
the bay, passes up his creek of harborage, fastens his skiff to the

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shore under close cover, leaps out, leaves his fish behind him, and,
catching up glass and gun, hastens once more to the headland
where we first encountered him.

“'T is she!” he exclaims, after sweeping the southwest passage
with his glass. “'T is the `Happy-go-Lucky' at last. Thank
God! I 'm sick enough of this waiting.

Following his glance, we see the object which occasions his delight.
A small vessel glides through the distant channels. Now
we catch a glimpse of her whole figure; a low long brigantine,
that seems to carry admirable heels. The next moment, her
white sails and slender masts only gleam above the sand dunes
and the marsh. Now she disappears behind a forest; and anon
emerges, running by a sand dune.

Our solitary runs up a tree that juts out appropriately on the
headland. He seems to have used it before for such a purpose.
He climbs like a cat; is evidently a sailor; is up, aloft; and, in
a moment, a white streamer is seen waving from the tree!

The scene grows animated with a new life. There is no longer
solitude. That one brave vessel, “walking the waters,” is “a
thing of life.” How beautifully she comes on! — seems rather to
fly than to swim; darts through the narrow channels, as if certain
of her route; and breaks into the bay, with all her canvass bellying
out under the embraces of the western breeze, as if Cleopatra
herself were on deck. And one, not unlike, and not less beautiful
than Cleopatra, was on her deck at that moment. But of her
hereafter.

Our solitary shouts joyous from his tree. Well may he shout.
It is with love that he shouts. She is his pet, his favorite; he
loves the gallant vessel, as if she were a bride.

And she is a beautiful creature. Even in the sight of us simple
landsmen, who know nothing of her peculiar virtues, how she
sails; how she can eat into the very eye of the wind; how clean
are her heels; how easy her motion; what storms she has borne
and baffled; what seas she has traversed; over what foes triumphed;
what wondrous ventures made; — even to us she comes
on as a beautiful creature, all ethereal — a thing of light, and
life, and flight, and perpetual motion! Her hull, long and narrow;
her tall, rakish masts; the vast spread of canvass which she
carries, and the elaborate grace of her spars and motion — these

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strike even the inexperienced eye, as in proof of her speed and
beauty. She has a grace of her own; but you see, too, that there
are soul and skill in her management. You feel that there are
courage and conduct; that there is a master-spirit on board, who
wills, and she walks; who shouts, and she flies; who will carry her
forward when the seas are wildest, and train her on to the fearfullest
encounter with superior bulk, even as the swordfish darts to
the encounter with the whale! Even we simple landsmen can see
and conceive all these things as we gaze on the beautiful creature,
while she flings the feathery spray from her bows.

But the eyes of the seaman glitter as he beholds, and there is
a tear from those of the rough old salt, while ours do but smile.
His heart is in it. She is the creature of his affections. How
he envies the happy chieftain who sways the movements of his
painted beauty. His glance follows every plunge which she
makes through the pliant waters; and as she comes round upon
the breeze, without a word or voice, and darts forward, as an
arrow from the bow, straight for her harborage, he shouts — he
can not help but shout. He can no longer keep silent: he shouts
as he glides down the tree, and rather drops from it than descends.

“Hurrah! God bless the Happy-go-Lucky! hurrah! hurrah!”

The vessel makes her port. Our solitary is on the edge of the
cove to which her prow is bent. He is there to catch the rope
ere it touches earth, and hurry with it to the tree where he makes
her fast. The bolts rattle, the sails descend, and, with scarce a
ripple, she glides into the mouth of a little creek which has gratefully
felt her form before. Her masts mingle with the tall pines
that brood over on either side, so that it shall take very keen and
curious eyes to detect her presence. A voice, clear, sharp, and
musical, is heard from her decks: —

“Well, Jack Belcher, you see we have not forgotten you.”

The tones were affectionate.

“God bless your honor, and your honor's honor! May you
live for ever, and die at last in the `Happy-go-Lucky'! All's
well, your honor.”

CHAPTER II. THE HAPPY-GO-LUCKIES. “Touchstone.

And whither with you now? What loose action are you
bound for? Come! what comrades are you to meet withal? Where 's the
supper? where 's the rendezvous?”

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“Quoth he” — the ancient Marinere — “quoth he, there was a ship!”

But a more famous ship, in her day, than ever floated muse of
Coleridge, was she, the “Happy-go-Lucky” of the Spanish seas
and the year of grace 1684. Of a remote period to ours, she
was yet not very unlike in build, nor perhaps inferior in performance,
to the famous Baltimore clippers of the present time.
“Long, low, rakish,” in her structure, she carries a cloud of canvass,
under which we have her seen leaping forward with an impulse
which, in a heavier sea and under a livelier breeze, would have
buried her bowsprit in a continual crush of foam. In the smooth
waters of the bay beneath her, she glides like some graceful sea-bird,
exulting in the consciousness only of a pleasurable excitement.
Yet, docile in her sports, she has only heard a shrill
whistle, and almost silently her white wings fold themselves up to
her sides, and with scarce a ripple of the wave, and without farther
effort of her own, she passes to her covert among the pines,
and her masts are lost among their shady tops of green.

She is a cruiser. You may guess that from her build, her
world of canvass, her speed, her size, if not from the long brass
cannon working upon a pivot amidships, and the six brass muzzles
that grin significantly with open jaws on either side. She
has the capacity for mischief, clearly, whatever be her character.
Gently rocking in the narrow lagune where she seeks her rest, it
is permitted us to behold something more than her simple outlines.
Her inhabitants now tumble into sight on every hand; a goodly

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number of vigorous sea-dogs — somewhat more numerous, it would
seem, than are absolutely necessary to the working of so small a
craft. They constitute a crew, which, we may see at a glance,
are to be relied upon when blows are heavy. There are scarred
veterans among these fellows, motley enough — English, Irish,
Dutch, French — an amalgam of nations, which, elsewhere, are
rarely to be found working amicably together. Yet here, they
seem fused, as by one strong presiding will, into a congruous community.
The most casual eye may detect each national characteristic,
in shape, look, tone, gesture; yet here they blend together harmoniously,
under a common authority. They are docile enough,
most of them — nay submissive; yet there is a sort of freedom,
too, amounting to a social license, which forbids the idea that
either of these has sunk his individuality in his obedience to authority.
You hear them laugh and jest together; there are some
who sing out aloud, as if to test the healthy capacity of voice and
lungs; and, not unfrequently, a broad, corpulent, aggressive British
oath breaks upon the ear, like the roar of a bulldog, from the
lips of some surly islander, who fancies that unless he swears, and
can hear himself and make others hear, he forfeits something of
the natural independence of his breed.

You see, next, that these fellows are all picked men. They are
rough sea-dogs, no doubt, but sturdy, cool, hardy, stubborn; capable
of good knocks; giving and receiving; who have been already
trained and tried in a severe apprenticeship. They are fit
fellows for a cruiser with a roving commission. And such is that
borne by the “Happy-go-Lucky.”

As we traverse the decks, we find proofs of a late visit to regions
farther south. There are piles of West India fruits strewn
about; pyramids of orange, guava, and pine, secured in the nettings
around the guns, showing a more innocent species of artillery
than belongs altogether to the other aspects of the ship. The
“Happy-go-Lucky” has probably looked very lately into Jamaica
and Barbadoes; has had a squint at Porto Bello, a bird's-eye
view of Havana; and may have enjoyed a loving wrestle with
some of the good brigantines of these latter places, in which they
have found more fruits than those which lie carelessly strewn on
deck. Quien sabe?

But these piles of fruit implied, in the present case, neither

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

want of cleanliness nor confusion. In a twink, our cruiser will be
cleared for action; and, in the matter of cleanliness, never were
decks kept under “Holy Stone” regimen more rigidly than hers.
Her captain, be sure, is something of a martinet; and the nice,
trim condition of his ship would, we fancy, have seemed a very
idle object to the bluff, less fastidious sailors of the previous generation—
the days of Van Tromp, and Drake, and Cavendish.
It needs but a glance to assure yourself that our cruiser is under
the management of one who is no mere sailor; who brings some
taste into exercise along with his duties; who has grace as well as
valor; and can, doubtless, dance a galliard with courtly ease, in
the very next hour after making the dons of Mexico foot it to
the most vexatious sort of music.

But let us see him more nearly. He is the same person who
first welcomed our solitary, Jack Belcher, at the moment of their
mutual recognition. The latter personage has bounded on board
the vessel, the moment her sides grazed the shores, and we see
that the hand of his superior is extended him, with a frank and
hearty freedom that speaks quite as much for friendship as authority.
Our solitary wrings it with warm affection. There is some
love between the two, be sure. The superior speaks good humoredly:
“Well! tired out, Jack, eh?”

“Tired enough, your honor — but only of the waiting, not of
the work.”

“What! you 'd rather be dancing fandangoes with the Cuban
barefoots, eh?”

And there was a momentary flash of merriment in the blue eyes
of the speaker — but momentary only, for the next instant a cloud
seemed to pass across his face.

This was a handsome one, of the genuine English mould; perhaps,
for manhood, the most beautiful of all living models. His
features were all noble, decided, and symmetrical. The tout ensemble
exhibited boldness, freedom, sensibility; a prompt courage;
an eager temper; a generous, though perhaps irritable mood. It
was full of blood as well as character; big veins swelling on his
forehead, while the sanguine temperament declared itself, in warm
flushes, through a skin somewhat deeply bronzed with the intense
fervor of the tropical sun. He had the light brown hair and blue
eyes of the Saxon; the great frame, large as well as vigorous;

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

the erect carriage, the fearless look and demeanor of the Norman;
and just enough of thought and care in the general expression of
his face, as to lift the merely physical manhood into the dignity
of intellect and authority.

Some care sate upon his cheek, and might be guessed from the
gradually growing lines about the mouth; which was nevertheless
distinguished equally by its youth and beauty. The broad and
elevated brow, large but not massive; the quick, intelligent, and
frequent kindling of the eye, looking out blue and lively; but,
like an April sky, subject to very sudden changes; the prominent
Roman nose; the full, round chin; sweetly expressive, yet very
decisive mouth; — all declared for characteristics, which, whether
we regard the opinions of Lavater or Gall, impress us, through
the features, with the conviction that we stand in the presence of
a brave, manly soul, having truthful sympathies, and a will that
must everywhere assert command.

His person, as we have intimated, was framed in the very prodigality
of nature — tall of height, broad of shoulder, and equally
athletic and symmetrical. He was probably thirty years old, may
have been thirty-five; but, if we make due allowance for the
effects of care, strife, and authority, in situations of great responsibility,
we shall be more safe in assuming him to be no more than
thirty. He was clad very simply in loose duck trowsers, and
wore a sailor's jacket, but these were of very fine materials. His
bosom was ruffled in fine linen, curiously embroidered; a scarf of
blue, worn loosely, and secured by the sailor-knot, was wrapped
about his neck. A white Panama hat of ample rim and high
conical crown, of the time of Charles the First, covered his head,
and was encircled with a light-blue sash. He wore boots of yellow
tanned Spanish leather. A baldric of blue silk, hanging over
his shoulders, contained a brace of pistols, of rather long barrel,
wide mouth, and richly-wrought stocks, inlaid with silver. He
carried, at this moment, no other weapons.

You have the man before you, as he appears to us, shaking the
hands of one whose approach, address, tone of voice, and general
manner, show him to be a personal retainer, a faithful follower,
an old long-tried friend, no less than a subordinate.

“And so, Jack, you have had a taste of the maroon? How
long have you been here waiting?”

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

“But thirteen days, your honor; but it seems an age — more
than a month, certainly. I left Charleston—”

“Not yet, Jack — wait a little longer.”

And, as he spoke, the face of the superior was overcast with
a graver expression. He was approached, at that moment, by
another person, who will demand our special attention, even as
she coerced his.

“She! a woman!” Yes. Our rover, the “Happy-go-Lucky,”
is richly freighted. Feast your palate upon the choice fruits of
summer and the sun, which you see about you; your cupidity
upon the choice bales of silk and merchandises of East and West,
which are hoarded in the hold below; but let your eyes feed upon
the beautiful creature who now challenges our attention.

Very beautiful, indeed, is she, after the Spanish fashion. We
said something of Cleopatra in the preceding chapter. That name
is suggestive of but one ideal; and she who glides before us, and
lays her hand intimately upon the captain's shoulder, and looks
up with such a brilliant tenderness into his eyes, embodies that
model in perfection. She is not a large creature as Cleopatra
may have been — nay, petite rather — but full bosomed, with every
look speaking passion — music's passion; the sun's passion; the
passion of storm and fire upon occasion, ready to burst forth
without warning and spoil the sky's face, and rage among the
flowers.

She is brown with a summer's sun; her beauty is of the dark;
like a night without a cloud, far up in the sky, flecked with solitary
stars. Her features are not regular, but, in their very
caprice, they harmonize. Her large black eye dilates at every
glance, reveals every emotion, however slight, and passes, with
the rapidity of lightning, from smiles to tears; from tenderness to
a passion, which may easily be rage as well as love! It is keen,
restless, jealously watchful, intense in every phase. The nose is
small, but capable of sudden dilation; the lips voluptuous, pale,
and soon shaken with a tremulous quiver, whenever the feelings
are touched. The brow, whiter than the rest of the face, is
marked by two blue veins above the eyes, that become swollen at
a moment's warning. It is not high, nor massive, nor yet narrow;
the eyebrows are thick and black, the lashes long; and when the
orbs droop, in the languor of satisfied emotions, they form a

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

beautiful and glossy fringe fit for hiding the fiery jewels that burn
beneath.

An easy susceptibility to all emotions; a sleepless intensity of
mood, whatever the direction of the will; great energy of passion;
an ever-watchful jealousy; feelings that have never learned to
brook control or denial; a temper not often accustomed to restraint;
these are traits, all visible at a glance, to him who can
look through the features, in partial repose at present, to their natural
susceptibilities, and the moral atmosphere in which the owner
has grown to womanhood.

Her person, though small, is perfect, well rounded, neither too
full nor slender; a model, in short, for that style of beauty which
was hers. And every movement was graceful. She swam rather
than walked. Her little feet were never heard, in the thin, open
slippers which she wore. Her costume was of a light, gay green
silk; her bodice of the finest texture, embroidered openly in front,
and leaving the large, well-formed bosom to its own free swell,
under the pressure of perpetually striving emotions. Her dress,
though embroidered, and decorated besides with little cords of
gold and purple, that crossed the white openings in the silken
dress, was worn loosely, rather after a Grecian than an Italian or
Spanish fashion; sufficiently showing the perfection of the form,
without absolutely defining it; certainly without embarrassing, or
tending in the slightest degree to curb its movements.

Hair — such a mass, all raven black, which, loosed, would
sweep the earth behind her as she went — eyes, mouth, form,
complexion, — all seemed to carry you back to the gay season
when, in the halls of Zegri and Abencerrage, the maidens of Granada
borrowed lustre from the sun to light up the darkness, and
made the moon and stars tributary to passions which could tolerate
no stronger light, but which luxuriated in such as theirs.

Verily, she was of Moresco, quite as much as Spanish blood;
and you are sure of this when you hear her called “Zulieme.”
A little poniard in a sheath of green embossed leather, with richly-jewelled
hilt, worn in her girdle, seems to help the faith in her
Moorish origin. She is dark, but comely, like the beauty sung by
Solomon; and that wise person was understood to have quite an
eye for a fine woman. She was evidently of the order which he
preferred to crown with flowers and music.

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

But — but! ah! — but hereafter. There will be a time for the
qualifications — to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow!

Now! We see nothing but the beautiful; a sensuous beauty —
a thing solely for the eye: such as Canova makes of that exquisite
idiot whom he calls “The Venus.”

And, in all her beauty, costumed as we have shown her, Zulieme
approaches her lord, and, with one hand on his shoulder, and her
great black eyes peering into his, she exclaims, in tolerable English,
just sufficiently broken and imperfect to show that she is of
another nation, and to occasion a pleasant interest by the discovery—
she exclaims: —

“Why, Harry, how is this? Molyneaux tells me that this is
not Charleston!'

“I should say not, Zulieme. This is a wild region, uninhabited
almost, except by savages.”

“But why have you put in here, Harry?”

“It is necessary,” he answered, somewhat coldly.

“But why necessary? What is to be done here? Molyneaux
says that there is nothing to be done here; that there is nobody
to see, nobody to trade with, and I want to go to Charleston. I
would n't have come this voyage had you not promised me I should
go to Charleston. Molyneaux tells me—”

“Tell me no more, if you please, of what Mr. Molyneaux has
told you; and if you are wise, Zulieme, you will take your future
information, as to my purposes and conduct, from no other lips
than my own.”

“But I am not wise, Harry, and you sha' n't make me wise;
and how, if nobody tells me anything but you, and you never tell
me anything!”

“I tell you all, in respect to myself and my proceedings, Zulieme,
which I deem it proper for you to know. Who undertakes
to tell you more, in this ship, assumes a privilege which I shall
certainly arrest at the earliest moment.”

The gravity had become severity.

“Oh! do n't blame Mr. Molyneaux, now; if anybody is at fault,
it 's me. I asked Mr. Molyneaux, and he answered; and there 's
no harm in that, Harry.”

“I do n't know that!” was the answer, slowly spoken, and with
the air of one who muses upon some other subject.

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

“Yes, but you do know, Harry; and when I want to know
something, I will ask, and somebody must answer.”

“Ask of me, then, Zulieme.”

“Well, but you won't answer me always.”

“Then, it is not proper that you should seek from another the
information that I refuse. You ought to know, in such cases, that
the knowledge you seek is withheld for some good reason.”

“But why — what reason? And why should Mr. Molyneaux
know things that I must n't know? I 'm your wife, Harry, am I
not?”

“You are my wife, Zulieme,” was the gravely-spoken answer;
and the manner did not show that there was any satisfaction felt
in making the acknowledgment; “and as my wife, Zulieme, you
must content yourself with what I am pleased to tell you of the
affairs of this ship. Mr. Molyneaux is an officer of this ship; and
my wife must learn to know, if he does not, that his duty is to
keep its secrets. If your business were the management of the
vessel, then it would be your right to know; but—”

“Oh! I do n't care about the ship's affairs, Harry; it 's my own
affairs; and I ask you why you put in here, in this wild place,
when we were to go to Charleston? It was to go to Charleston
that I agreed to leave New Providence. You told me that we
would go there; and you promised to stop at Cuba, yet you never
stopped, or only for a moment, and I never had a sight of Havana,
and you know what I wanted to see there. Ah, the dear Cuba!
the sights, and the bullfights, and the dances! And now, it seems,
we are not to go to Charleston—”

“Who says that, Zulieme?”

“Why, Mr. Molyneaux said—”

A stern, impatient look and gesture cut short the communication;
and the eyes of the captain glanced quickly and angrily
from the lady, in the direction of a person who stood near the
companion-way, and who seemed, at that moment, to have the
ship in charge.

This was Mr. or rather Lieutenant Molyneaux, so often referred
to by the lady. He was a young man, probably the youngest in
the vessel, of middle size, slight build, but apparently of great
activity. His face, which was turned toward the parties at the
moment, was effeminate, smooth, even boyish; but its expression

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

was that of careless daring, amounting to effrontery. He belonged
to the proverbial “order of the Bashful Irishmen.” There
was a half smile upon his countenance, as his eye met the glance
of his superior, which seemed significant with a peculiar meaning.

“Did you call, sir?” he asked, somewhat indifferently, as his
eye caught the expression in that of his superior.

“No, sir — no! — and yet I did call, Mr. Molyneaux. One
word, sir.”

The other approached at a moderate pace, though without any
apparent interest. As he drew nigh, the captain said: —

“Mr. Molyneaux, you will please understand that it is not by
any means necessary that you should communicate to anybody
but myself the courses and direction of this ship. She may steer
east, west, north, or south, and all on board must submit without
question, or expectation of answer, to the orders which I give on
this and all other subjects. No answer, sir, if you please. I have
no purpose to converse now; only to inform, that we may prevent
mistakes in future.”

The slightest possible smile might be seen upon the lips of the
lieutenant as he touched his hat and receded. But a fierce, passionate
stare on the part of the lady betrayed equal astonishment
and indignation, and threatened a sudden outbreak.

“How, Harry, do you mean that Mr. Molyneaux is not to
answer my questions?”

“Exactly! He is to answer no questions, of anybody, in relation
to the working of this ship, its course, objects, or interests.
These are sacred even from you, and do you not attempt to persuade
any officer to a neglect or breach of duty. Ask me what
you want to know, and if it be proper that you should know, I will
answer you.”

“Look you, Harry, none of your haughty ways with me. I
won't stand it. You sha' n't treat me as if I were only a child.
I must and will know, Harry. You said positively we were to
come to Charleston, and if you had n't said that, I never should
have consented to leave Providence. You promised me, Harry,
to carry me to Havana and Charleston both, and now you bring
me here to this wild heathen country, where there are wolves and
tigers, and the red savages. I say, I will know, Harry, whether
you mean to keep your word, and carry me to Charleston.”

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

A very angry expression crossed for a moment the face of the
superior. You could see that it needed little for a storm — a
sudden burst of thunder; but he subdued the tempest with a
severe exertion of will, and in tones not merely sober, but even
gentle, though firm, he answered: —

“Zulieme, no more of this at present; whether I shall go to
Charleston or not, depends upon intelligence which I am to find
here.”

“And from whom, Harry, in this savage place? You are only
cheating me, I know.”

“You saw the person who met me from this shore? But, it
does not matter. It should not. It should be enough for you,
Zulieme, that I have answered you. I do not relish this too close
questioning. You must learn to believe what I tell you, and
submit.”

The lady pouted, and stamped her little feet impatiently; her
companion scarcely heeded it, as he went on: —

“No more of this impatience, Zulieme. Be content with the
assurance that I have duties to others, in fulfilling which, I am
obliged to put in here — which may carry me to Charleston —
probably will; but which may require that I shall steer in any
other direction. And, as my wife, you must understand that my
duties involve yours, and must learn to submit, without complaint
or question, to the necessities which I have to recognize. Go
below now, or amuse yourself on deck — do what you wish —
while I see Jack Belcher, and procure the information which shall
decide my course.”

“And I say again, Harry Calvert, that you treat me like a
child!” exclaimed the spoiled beauty, passionately.

“Ay, and you are a child, Zulieme! What else! what else!”
This was said very gravely and sadly, but gently, even tenderly.—
“But go below, and beware how you make me appear ridiculous
in the sight of these rude men. There are eyes upon us, which
must see in me nothing but the master. Do not let your folly
undo my authority!”

“But why may I not go on shore, Harry?” changing her tone
in an instant. “Why not have supper under those great trees,
and fruits, and music? Oh! it will be so pretty, and so nice,
Harry.”

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

“Yes, to be sure! — why not? Do so, Zulieme. Give the orders,
and set your maid to work. Call Phipps to help. Phipps!
Phipps!”

Phipps was the cabin-boy.

And, so speaking, Captain Calvert was moving away, when the
lady caught his arm:

“But is there no danger of the red savages, Harry? They
say your savages of Carolina are a fiercer race than ours. They
eat Christians, do n't they?”

“I have already got a scouting party in the wood, Zulieme,
under Lieutenant Eckles. There is no danger. Belcher has
been here, alone, for more than a week.”

“Oh! how frightful! and nobody with him! Oh! I should
prefer the savages to the silence of these lonely woods. But, go
'long, Harry. Go 'long, now; while I set Sylvia and Phipps to
work. We shall have such a nice supper, and music, and a
dance.”

And she lilted and warbled as she spoke. Then calling, “Sylvia,
Sylvia!” to the maid below, and clapping her hands, with a shrill
scream for Phipps, the lady, in a moment after, darted down the
companion-way, seeming altogether to forget, in her new fancies,
that she was the unhappy proprietor of one of those wretched
husbands who refuse to answer impertinent questions.

Mr. Molyneaux glanced at her retiring figure; his eyes then
followed that of the captain. The latter joined Jack Belcher on
the headlands, and proceeded with him into the thicket and out
of sight. Upon the lips of Mr. Molyneaux there sat the same
smile with which he had met the sudden and stern glance of his
principal. It was cool, quiet, full of effrontery and self-esteem.
Yet, how feminine were all his features. And how should he —
so seemingly effeminate, and evidently the youngest person in the
ship — how should he have risen to the rank of second officer?

That smile told the whole story. Girlish though he seemed,
he had that degree of audacity and resolution which could carry
him through scenes from which greater frames and tougher sinews,
and more hardy-looking persons, would have shrunk in dismay.
And he would go into the melée as to a feast. And the
very effeminacy of his person deceived his enemies. Under that
girlish and delicate exterior, he concealed powerful muscles and

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

well-knit limbs, and a lithe activity, which, in the moment of
danger, left nearly all others behind!

But why did he smile as his captain went from sight? What
is the secret in that sinister expression? And did his superior
feel, or fancy, the occult meaning which it seemed to cover?

It did not please him, evidently. There was an instinct at
work, no doubt, which made Captain Calvert feel that there was
something unpleasant in that smile of his second officer. But he
is not the man to brood over the occult. And he has other cares
on hand at this moment; and, forgetting the whole scene just
over, it was with some eagerness that he joined Jack Belcher on
the shore, and bade him lead into the thick cover of the forest.

CHAPTER III. AGONIES OF A LOST HOPE.

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

“Tidings have come to me that on my house a bolt hath fallen at midnight,
and left ashes, where I had left delights, in precious babes, and one
that watched them.”

Jack Belcher led the way for his superior into that close
covert where we have followed the former once before. Here the
captain threw himself down upon the little sea-chest which carried
all Jack's stores, while the latter leaned against one of the great
trees that helped to pillar and roof his sylvan habitation.

“Well, Jack,” said Calvert, impatiently, “you have seen the
governor? Does he write?”

“No indeed, sir; I think he's a little afraid of putting things to
paper. He's scary! — says `the devil 's to pay!' that the king's
been bullied by the Spaniard, and our business is to be stopped
altogether. There 's to be no more winking at our work in the
West Indies. The Spanish embassador demands that when an
English sailor shouts out, `No peace beyond the line,' he 's to be
tucked up, out of sight, in a jiffy, and made to swing, just where
you find him, whether on sea or land. There 's to be no more
fair trading on any account, and the governor seems half disposed
to close accounts with you for ever.”

The fellow paused.

“Well — well! go on.”

“Well, sir, there's little more to tell you. I had some work to
get to a private talk with the governor. But when I showed him
your ring, and gave him the letter, he let out free enough. Only,
I could n't get him to write. He says the council watches him.
But he 'll wink, I 'm a-thinking, and not look too closely where he
should n't. That is, if your honor takes care to give him the
right kind of eye-water.”

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

“Yes! yes! I understand him! But how are the citizens?
You went among them? You saw Stillwater and Franks?”

“All right in that quarter. Stillwater says the governor's a
cross between a fool and rogue. He has the conscience for the
trade, but wants the pluck. Frank says: “Come on; there's
just as good custom now as when the king had Christian bowels.
As for the people, I see no difference. They do n't see the harm
or the wrong in riddling a Spanish galleon, or, for that matter, a
Frenchman; they hate 'em both, and look upon 'em, sensibly, as
natural enemies. They will buy whatever you 've got to sell, and
ask no question about the sort of flag you pulled down to get at
the goods. I do n't see that you 'll have any trouble from them.”

“Then we 've nothing to fear from the governor. If such be
the temper of the people, Quarry will give us no trouble. As for
Charles Stuart, he 's a fool. As if the Spaniard and Frenchman
were not the natural enemies of England. As if every captured
galleon was not gain of strength as well as wealth to us. Fool!
fool! like his father; and, like him, bought and sold, to the shame
and loss of England. But what said the governor to my coming
into port?”

“He hemmed and hawed — said it was very dangerous; he
could n't say; you might take the risk if you pleased, but 't was
your own risk. He could n't say what would be the upshot of it;
he said council was monstrous prying into the business.”

“Any armed vessel on the station? — king's ship, I mean?”

“I know, sir. No, not that I could hear. The Lime, Pearl,
and Shoreham, were all on the Virginia coast; the Phœnix and
Squirrel at New York; the Rose at Boston; the Winchelsea—”

“At Jamaica, we know — and so is the Adventure; did you
hear nothing of the Scarborough?”

“She's a thirty-gun ship? There was a report of one that had
been on the coast, but I did n't get her name. It's certain there
was no king's ship on the Carolina coast when I left; but the
governor said one might be expected soon. He was scary enough,
and talked a good deal about character, and responsibility, and
dignity, and his office, as if he hadn't buttoned 'em up long ago,
and covered 'em out of sight with Spanish doubloons. I reckon
there's some change in the council, sir, that makes him so scary;
there's one person in the council now, sir, that wa' n't in it before;

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

and the name is one, sir, that 'll raise your hair a little. It's a
Major Berkeley.

“Major Berkeley!” cried the captain, starting up and approaching
the subordinate.

“Yes, sir; but what Berkeley I could n't find out. I could
n't get to see him, and the governor never told me of him at all.
Of course, I thought directly of your own brother, and how curious
't would be if he was removed to Carolina. But I could find
out nothing but this, that he 's an Edward Berkeley too; they
call him Sir Edward, seeing that he 's made a cassique, or lord, in
this country, and he 's got a family — wife and children!”

“Edward Berkeley! and wife! and — did you say children?”

“Yes, sir, he 's got children — or a child — one or more. They
told me wife and children.”

“Children! and by her! O God! and I have lived for this!
and Olive is a mother! a mother! and her children are not mine!
And what am I, and where am I! after all these struggles, this
toil and danger in a doubtful service; denounced by the laws;
deserted by my sovereign; an exile — perhaps an outlaw! Ah!
God! But this, this might have been spared me!”

And our cruiser strode the wood as he thus passionately spoke,
and his fingers were thrust into his hair and clenched with violence,
while his whole frame shook with the convulsions of his
soul.

“Do n't, sir; do n't, your honor; do n't take on so, dear master.
It may not be your brother, after all.”

“'Tis he! I feel it! They were wedded, I know. That ancient
Jezebel, her mother! She has done it all. She has torn
us asunder for ever. Olive's heart was mine — mine only. But
what are hearts to selfish mothers? What a woman's heart to a
mother's ambition? What a younger brother's heart, when he
who claims the birthright requires its sacrifice? It is he — it is
Edward Berkeley; and he is come hither now, having robbed
me of all that made life precious, perhaps to rob me of life
also — to bring me to an ignominious death! Poor Olive! with
thy depth of soul, with thy singleness of passion, to be thus bartered.
And — children too! His children! his children! Oh!
Edward Berkeley, thou hast robbed me of something more than
life!”

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

“Master, dear master, remember — you have now a wife of
your own.”

“Ah! do I not know it, Belcher? Great Heavens! and such
a wife! a doll! a painted baby! a poor child-creature, whose very
smile mocks me with a cruel memory of all that is lost to me for
ever. True, Olive was lost ere I wedded her. Yet why should
I have wedded her? Better to have made the heart live on the
bitter memory. Yet, there was excuse. I owed much to this
child's care of me. And in what madness of soul did I seek in
another the recompense for that most miserable loss!”

“Alas, your honor, is n't it too late now to—”

“Ah! as if that were not the worst agony of all! There is the
venom in the wound. It is too late. No more, Jack! no more!
Olive Masterton has children, and they are not mine; and these
children will beget that love which did not beget themselves.
I must not think. Poor, poor Olive! But I will see her! I
will see her once more!”

“Oh! sir, better not!”

“I will see her, if I die for it! I can not help it. The Fates,
if she is indeed in Charleston, have thrown her in my way. They
decree that we shall meet once more. I will gaze upon her face,
though she may not see mine. I will startle her soul with my
voice, though I may not listen to hers. I will look upon the face
of her child — her child! Oh! Olive Masterton, hadst thou been
firm, strong, devoted — hadst thou kept thy faith, and had faith in
mine — this had never been! The cruel arts of thy cruel mother
had never prevailed to tear our hearts asunder, to blight hope and
heart, and yield thee, and yield me, to embraces which are loathsome
to both. Ay, loathsome to thee, I swear it; unless, indeed,
thou wert all a lie, like that artful fiend, thy mother!”

“Master, dear master!”

“Oh! Jack, I am weak — weak unto death!” cried the strong
man, throwing himself upon the ground, while a deep groan issued
from his chest. The faithful follower hung over him.

“Dear master, give not way.”

“I will not, Jack. I will be strong. It is too late. Ay, something
is too late. But, I must and will see her. Do not fear me,
Jack, I will be calm — calm as the grave when it closes its heavy
jaws over the wreck of best affections. Olive! Olive Masterton!

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

thou hast crushed me to the earth, in thy own wretched lack of
love.”

“Oh! Master, she lacked not that! But what could she do?
You gone — lost, perhaps — and that old one at her from morning
till night. A mother too! and so cunning. You do n't think what
the poor girl had to suffer. I know something of it, master. I
heard — I saw! and it is n't for a young girl to stand a mother's
prayers and pleadings long. And they were very poor: and you
do n't know how they were made to feel it — and they who had
been used to live in such grandeur.”

“Ay! she was sold; and that Edward Berkeley should be
the man to take advantage of her poverty, her dependency, her
mother's arts, and my absence.”

“Oh, sir, as I 'm a living man, I do n't believe your brother
ever knew of your love for her.”

“He must have known — must have heard!”

“He might suspect, but I do n't think he knew, and that old hag
never let him know. She kept the truth from him. I 'm sure of
it. You recollect, he was on the continent all the while when you
were with her. You were gone before he came home.”

“But my letter?”

“Ten to one he never got it. You never got any answer.
Oh! sir, do not suspect your brother.”

“Why was the marriage so hurried, before I could return?”

“'T was his passion, sir, and the mother's arts. Besides,
't wa' n't so much hurry, either, since you remember, we were
eleven months getting across from Panama, owing to your dreadful
sickness.”

“Ah! that horrid time! and its more horrid consequences!
'T was the terrible news from England that broke me down, and
made me deplore the cares that saved me in spite of that pestilential
fever. And then it was, that, in a fatal hour — in my despair
and vexation on the one hand, and in a false notion of gratitude
on the other — I committed the worst of all my errors: gave
my hand to this foolish child; married a woman who could move
passion, but not love — a toy, not a woman; a mere trifler with
the heart that would like to honor — if nothing more — like to
believe her worthy of some sympathy, if not of mine.”

“But she loves you, sir. Believe me, sir, she loves you!”

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

“Ay, perhaps, as far as she can know to love; but what a
child — how weak, how vain, how frivolous! a continual caprice,
that vexes even in its fondness; that makes you revolt, even
when passion most persuades to tenderness. Ah! Jack, I have
sacrificed a solace in a frenzy. I might have cherished pride
even in disappointment. I have shut myself out from the consolations
which a cherished faith might have brought me even in
moments of despair. What had I to do with a child passion,
when I was sure of a noble woman's love?”

“But that was lost and gone, my dear master.”

“No! I had lost a hope, but not the life in which the hope had
birth. I had lost the woman I had loved — not her affections.
Her heart was mine — never less mine than when she was wrapt
in the embraces of another. And upon this I might have lived.
To brood upon the precious memory would have been a solace,
when passion could proffer none. And that I should be so led by
passion — I that had suffered in such a school of suffering! — that
a mere whim, a caprice, a fancy, should have led me thus into a
bondage whose galling chains eat into the very soul, and make
every thought a torture.”

“'T was gratitude, sir — 't was a good feeling that made you
marry the señora.”

“Tell me nothing of gratitude, Jack Belcher; as if any gratitude
should justify such a sacrifice — justify vows which neither
can keep or value.”

“Oh, sir, I do think the señora loves you. She 's true to you,
sir.”

“Ah, yes! to be sure she 's true!”

“How she did watch your sick-bed! how she did nurse you
when your life hung upon a thread — when even I gave up —
when nobody had a thought you could live, and only thought how
to save you pain in your dying hours! How she watched and
hoped through all, and was never wearied; and kept bathing your
head and hands in the vinegar; and kept the cooling plantain-leaf
upon your forehead; and, when her mother said you would die,
who wept and swore you should n't die; and who made all others
bend to her — and she still nothing but a child. Oh! sir, that
was love — and it saved you; and though she has n't the ways of
our English, yet, sir, I do think her heart is full of love for you,

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

and she 's as true to you, though she does vex you so much, as
any woman of England could be.”

“No doubt! no doubt! But oh! Jack Belcher, though I feel
and believe all that you say, yet it brings no relief. There is no
consolation in it. Better were she wholly the idle butterfly creature
that she seems; better false, hollow, heartless, as she is vain,
vexing, weak, and capricious. Then, I could fling her off —
whistle her down the wind with scorn — and surrender myself
wholly to the bitter memory of that early passion, which was a
truth, a faith, a sweet reality of love, no matter what the denial
and the loss, instead of fruit and blossom! But leave me for a
while, Jack. I must be alone. Let me lie here in the solitude.
I would think — think until I forget, if that be now possible.”

“Will you take some of the Jamaica, sir? It 's a good thing
for a solitary man.”

Jack's ideas of solace had something in them very decidedly
English. He honestly believed that the seat of the soul is the
abdomen, and that Jamaica was the divining power which could
reach it.

“No, thank you, Jack. Nothing. Leave me for a while.
Join me in an hour, when I shall be better able to talk with you
of ship's affairs.”

The subordinate said no more, but, with a look that still lingered,
the faithful fellow made his way out of the thicket, leaving
his superior to brood, with what philosophy he might, over the
rash impulses which, in a moment of weakness, had led him to
voluntary fetters, which now, to use his own strong phraseology,
were eating into his very soul. He had simply done what is done
by thousands daily —

CHAPTER IV. LOVE AFTER A FOREIGN FASHION.

“Call you this love?
This phantasy, this sighing, these sad looks!
Oh fie! Love 's like the zephyr to the roses,
That comes with happiest wing, and sings at meeting;
Meeting and parting sings, and so dreams joyous
Of still fresh meetings with as happy flowers.”

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

It is part of youth's business to sport and play, dance and sing,
just as certainly as to work and grow. The work and growth
depend quite as much upon the play as the food and nurture.
And we must not look too severely upon exuberances which belong
to the instincts. We must let youth rollick at due seasons,
just as we suffer young colts to kick up their heels upon a common;
and we must not see too austerely that this kicking up of
the heels, whether of the human animal or the young horse, is
calculated to exhibit them in uncouth or ridiculous attitudes.
Do n't vex yourself, or others, about their attitudes. It is the
kicking up which is the essential performance; the grace will
grow afterward, as a due consequence of the familiar exercise.
To us who are no longer in the gristle, whose limbs are solidly
set, and grow daily more and more uncompromising, there is, no
doubt, something quite as impertinent as awkward in this rollicking
of young creatures. But, dear brother, now growing grisly,
if not ungraceful, be sure, while you rebuke the absurd antics of
boyhood, that you are not governed quite as much by a secret
envy, which deceives yourself, as by a fastidious feeling of the
proprieties. Be sure, before you sermonize, that you would really
refuse these antics, even if you could practise them; that it would
be no satisfaction to you to leap backward forty years or more,
and rejoice in the hop-skip-and-jump, the somersault, or even the

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

bruising-match and buffet of yonder urchins, whom you now regard
with such solemn gravity, as emulous only of the doings of
apes and monkeys. Boys have to go through a certain portion
of ape-and-monkey practice and experience before they can be
men; and we have only to take care that they are duly exercised
in man-practice also, so that they do not finally grow into the
exclusive fashion of the beast!

And girls are boys, with a certain difference, and women men!
And they too must pass through a certain amount of rollicking;
and our only solicitude in their case is that they should not show
quite so much of their heels as the tougher gender. Just see that
their figleaves are a fraction longer; and if you make some difference
in the cut and fashion of skirt and small-clothes, you will
probably put as much curb on the young creatures as they need
in the rollicking season through which they have to pass.

And if the silly monkeys insist, for their part, on flinging up
their heels to the sound of music, do n't fancy, for the life of you,
that the disparagement is to the heels, however much it may be
to the music. If the fiddle can time the paces of these wild colts;
if heels can be made to work together harmoniously; be sure that
there is much less chance of their being cast up in each other's
faces. And, one thing let me tell you — the more you encourage
the shaking of the legs, the more you discourage that incessant
wagging of the tongue, which is apt to become a scandal to the
sex, in teaching all the arts of scandal. In brief, innocent sports
are absolutely necessary to the preservation of innocence; and
the heart depends quite as much, for its continued purity, upon an
occasional flinging out of legs and arms, as upon your stale saws
and owl-like maxims. All that we have need to do, to guard
against danger, is that the sports shall be simply those of young
limbs needing exercise, stripped of all conventional adjuncts, by
which we teach something more profound than exercise, and more
mischievous than the contredanse and pugilism. To the pure all
things are pure, even the heels of colts and the claws of kittens;
and we have only to see and keep them to the mere rollicking,
without suffering this to become tributary to the sensualism at
once of thought and blood. And so you shall see that dancing
does not mean simply hugging and squeezing; and that you are
not reconciled, by a foreign fashionable name, into those practices,

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

which, in the plain vernacular, mean anything but dancing! Of
course, this is doctrine meant only for animals of English breed —
that stern, intense, savage Anglo-Norman nature, which goes to
its very sports with a sense of morals, and justifies its pursuit of
happiness by a reference to duty. It is otherwise with light flexible
natures like the Italian and the French. To these, sport is
its own justification, and sufficiently satisfies of itself. But when
we, of rough British origin, undertake their habitual exercise, we
are apt to get drunk upon them. The fire rages in the blood, and
rushes to the brain, in our intensity of temperament, and the game
which we have begun in play is but too apt to end in passion.

We have said all this, dear reader, in order that you should be
properly prepared to look upon a little child's play — a colt rollicking—
without feeling your sense of dignity too much outraged.
Remember, too, we are in a wild land, where European law
scarcely touches us with a feeling of reserve or caution. Our
dramatis personœ, also, though of all European stocks, are of
rather irregular practice, and will, no doubt, show you many rules
not to be found in Gunter. Do n't let these things cause any misgivings.
It is your policy to see something of all the world's varieties—
to see how Humanity demeans itself in different situations;
and you are wise in just that degree in which you recognise all
human practices, irrespective of the laws laid down by your little
parish conventionalities. Thus warned, if you blunder, sagely or
savagely, in your meditations, the fault is none of ours.

Our Zulieme has no sooner heard that she is in a place of
safety, where she can rollick upon dry land without dreading the
loss of skin and scalp, than she begins to fling out her heels. She
lilts, she sings, she screams, claps her little hands, and dances, and
forgets that she has a master.

“Sylvia! Sylvia!” she half shouts, half warbles, as she darts
down into the cabin.

“Phipps! Phipps!” — and Sylvia appears, a thick-lipped negress,
mulatto rather, with a turbid current running through veins
and skin, great eyes, a flat nose, and glossy black hair of that wiry
and frizzled character which, to some eyes, may possess a peculiar
beauty. In the hands of some modern novelists, who are ambitious
equally of taste and eccentricity, she might become a heroine,
calculated to provoke the raptures of a Prince Djalma. To

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

others, of more philanthropy than taste, she would appear the
ideal of a much-wronged race of hybrids, who would be more esteemed
for their charms could an eccentric philosophy succeed in
disturbing the natural instincts of a superior civilization. But
poor Sylvia lives at a period when taste was more proper and
natural, and philanthropy more sane, and so we describe her as
she appears to all about her — an Abigail of very vulgar attractions,
with all the cunning of her class, sly, deceitful, somewhat
clever, and ugly enough for trust, as the waiting-maid of “milady.”

Phipps is a brisk cabin-boy, of British bulk and character, sixteen
years old, sprightly enough in his province as a knife-cleaner
and actor of all work in a cruiser's cabin, without any very salient
features, moral or physical, his nasal prominence excepted. This
is a nose, an unquestionable proboscis; an ample rudder to a
round, fair Saxon face of good fleshy rotundity.

They both show themselves at the summons of the lady. They
are both pleased to obey a call which promises pleasure. There
is to be a supper and a dance on shore. Phipps plays the fiddle:
Sylvia feeds with appetite; has as great a passion for dancing as
her mistress, though scarcely so graceful of movement; and both
are particularly delighted with the idea of a rollicking on shore.

And they go to work with an impulse which makes preparation
easy. Fruits, and sweetmeats, and solids; plates, knives and
forks; flasks of ruddy wines of Canary and Madeira, are transferred
in a twink from hold and cabin to the shelter of green trees.
Blankets, nay cloaks, and rich couvrelits, are spread upon the
turf, and hung from the branches; and soon you behold the fair
Zulieme seated in state under a natural canopy of oaks and cedars.
And anon you behold the sailors, in clean toggery, beginning
to group themselves about the area, though at a respectful
distance from the queen of the fête. They are never indifferent
to sports which relieve duty; and they are not superior to the
vanity which for ever feels conscious that other eyes are looking
on. So you note that their duck trowsers are of the whitest; and
some of them sport red sashes about the waist, in which their pistols
and knives shine with recent furbishing. And they wear
jaunty jackets of blue, and green, and crimson; and their hats of
straw are wound about with shawls or handkerchiefs of quite as

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

many colors; and these are of silken stuffs, such as would have
been held rare and rich enough in the days of old Queen Bess.
And you need but look into the eyes of these several parties, to
see, as Phipps tunes his fiddle in a recess of the wood, and the
notes come faintly to their senses, that they meditate shaking legs
themselves, presuming, no doubt, on indulgences which have not
been denied before.

And at the feet of the beautiful Zulieme you see the Spanish
guitar, thickly inlaid with pearl, and ebony, and silver, in vines
and flowers, while a broad scarf of crimson floats around it in the
breeze, which said scarf will anon encircle the neck and shoulders—
white and bare enough in her present costume — of the
beauty of the feast. She has made her toilet for the occasion.
She has an eye, with all her childish simplicity, to what belongs
to such an occasion. She knows that all these rough sailors admire;
that they too have eyes; and failing to figure, as she designed,
in the festas of the Cuban, she is not unwilling to receive
the homage of a ruder class of worshippers.

And so she glows in green and crimson, and her hair wantons
free, only sprinkled with pearls, which contrast exquisitely with
her raven tresses; while, wrapping her neck in frequent folds,
and dropping down upon her bosom in a gorgeous amulet, with
pendant diamond cross, they serve to show how much whiter is
the delicate skin which they do not so much adorn as illustrate.
Her dress, open enough for the display of a very admirable bust,
is loose enough in skirt for the perfect freedom of an exquisite
figure. A cincture of green and gold, with diamond clasp, encircles
her waist, and her jewelled poniard secures the clasp, the little
sheath forming the rivet which brings the opposing eyes of the
clasp together.

Zulieme has not forgotten the first of her lessons, — the one
tanght most easily — the one always taught by a fond, foolish,
adoring mother, — that she is, in truth, very beautiful; and that
the sole object of dress is not, as vulgar people think, to conceal,
but to adorn and properly develop the person; and, as she now
sits before us, we are again reminded of Cleopatra —

“Cleopatra, lussuriosa,”

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

beauty, but of the masculine eyes looking on, that drink in provocation
at every glance, and grow momently more and more bewildered
with the intoxications of passion.

To the class of beauties which Zulieme represents, the possession
of the fascination is nothing compared with its exercise upon
the victim. It loses half of its charm in their own eyes, unless
they feel that others grow blind beneath its spells. And when
vanity and voluptuousness grow together, who shall measure the
extent of insanity to which their proprietor will speed? It was
fabled of Circe, that she transformed her worshippers into brutes.
But the fable properly implies that they were brutified by the
fascination, which, in its own growth of passion, had lost all power
to discriminate in the choice of its worshippers, and had ceased to
consider the difference in the quality of the homage, or whether it
was accorded by brutes or men. Circe was willing enough to
exhibit herself to beast as well as man; and, like her, our Zulieme
was perhaps quite as well pleased with the admiration of Jack Tar
as that of her own liege lord, his superior and hers — the stern,
half outlaw, but noble Captain Calvert.

“But where is my lord, the while?”

We could answer. We have seen where and how. But of his
griefs, or of any griefs, our lady asks no questions. The feast is
spread. The viands are about to be served, and Lieutenant Molyneaux
sits at the feet of the lady, hands up the cates, and serves
her with hands and eyes. He too, always studious of his personal
appearance, is habited with care and taste for the occasion.
His figure, tbough not massive, is a good one. He prides himself
equally on the having, and the making, of a leg. Charles Molyneaux
is something of a courtier. He has dressed himself, making as near
an approach to the court costume of that day as possible. For
example, his neat figure is clad in silk stockings and small-clothes.
He wears a diamond buckle at knee and instep. He has on a
richly-flowered vest of silk; and the frills of his shirt protrude
six inches from his bosom. His silken cravat is of dimensions
which suit rather a levée at St. James, or St. Cloud, than warm
weather and the woods of Kiawah. His coat is of brocade, such
as Bolingbroke wore at the court of France. It is of Paris cut
and so, a sufficient model, of course, for all the courts of Europe.
Mr. Molyneaux is a person of conventional tastes. He does not

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

suffer himself sufficient freedom, to consult that better propriety,
which makes good taste superior to all convention. In one respect,
however, he left Nature to her own decencies. He wore
no pomatum or powder in his hair; but this forbearance was not
his merit. These commodities were neither among the ship's
stores nor his own. He possessed a naturally fine shock, which,
let go free, had grown into very copious love-locks, which did not
misbeseem the days of Rochester and the effeminate style of his
own face. His complacency is such as not to suffer him to suppose
that any costume would misbeseem his person!

And, sitting at the feet of the gay lady, he played the courtier
in speech, and look, and action, no less than in costume. He
taught his eyes to languish, looking deathly things into hers. His
tones were subdued sweetly to those murmuring accents which
lovers suppose to be fitly adapted to honeyed sentiments; and the
compliments whispered to her now, and at other periods, were of
that equivocal sort — half serious and sentimental, and half playful—
which the young coquette hears with a thrill, and responds
to with a sigh; and which the fashionable world considers a very
natural, proper, and wholly unobjectionable method of conversation:
Passion feeling his way; gradually insinuating; not offending
all at once, but so preparing his advance that the mind is
gradually corrupted, and not apt, when final offence is given, to
show itself offended at all. It is, indeed, wonderful how rapid is
this progress of safe insinuation in such cases: she who drinks,
tasting none of the poison, so infinitesimal is the dose, and so
sweet the draught; but, drinking so frequently that all the veins
are filled in brief season, and the poison finally makes perfect
lodgment in the heart. Of course, where there are many lovers,
there is a corresponding growth of obtuseness; passion itself no
longer finding stimulus, from too great a familiarity with this sort
of provocation, and flirtation serving then to gratify the vanity of
that passion which has no other appetite. It is curious, indeed,
how cold and sterile vanity contrives to render all other passions.

Poor Zulieme! she was a flirt from mere vanity and vacuity of
thought. It was easy for her to smile and play; very pleasant to
be played with; very grateful to be taught that she had her own
fascinations, and that wisdom, in her case, might very well be
dispensed with. She had been made beautiful — made to appear

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

beautiful — and so, to appear beautiful was her great duty in life;
and to receive the continued assurance that she was the beauty
that she had been taught to think herself, and was doing the
proper business for which she was made, was, of course, calculated
to put her mind at rest on all disquieting subjects. That her husband
did not seem to care whether she was beautiful or not, was
not so much a cause of solicitude as of vexation. It only showed
him a wrong-headed, inappreciative person, who really did not
know what the uses of a husband are!

But Lieutenant Molyneaux gave no such offence. He was
shrewd, quick, selfish; had those arts in perfection which teach
how to take advantage of another's weakness. He soon sounded
the shallows of poor Zulieme's little heart and head: thought so,
at least; but was mistaken partly. She was a pretty idiot, vain
and capricious; a spoiled child, insolent as lovely; charming without
an art, but charming only as a plaything. But, as Molyneaux
was wont to say —

“It's a plaything, after all, that a man most wants. Let a man
take a wife who will; a plaything for me! and why not another
man's wife?”

There was no good reason, as the world goes, why not! His
comrade, Lieutenant Eckles, whom you see also in attendance, not
far from the beautiful Zulieme, but not at her feet; a young man
of inferior intellectual calibre to Molyneaux, but more certainly
moral; a good-looking fellow, too, but by no means beau or courtier;
he had some misgivings in regard to the policy, if not the
propriety, of his comrade's practice. More than once, on the
present voyage, he had shaken his head gravely at the presumption
of Molyneaux in respect to the captain's wife: not, however,
committing the absurdity of reproaching his morals, but only
warning him against the dangers of his course.

“Look you, Molyneaux,” he was wont to say, “for all that
Captain Calvert seems so indifferent about these liberties you take
with his wife, I'm sure he do n't like it.”

Likely not, Eckles — but she does.”

“I think that likely, too; but do n't you see that you're in
shoal water all the time, and can't say when you 'll be among the
breakers.”

“Pooh, Eckles! shall one drink his can the less because of

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

that? Shall I refuse fruit lest I be sick to-morrow? I am not
such an ascetic; no, nor such a fool. I am for taking the pleasure
when and where I find it, without asking myself whether
there be a thorn lurking for the fingers.”

“You will feel it prick when you least expect it; and the wound
will, some day, make you feel that the pleasure was a little too dearly
paid for. The captain's a terrible fellow when he rouses up!”

“What do I care, so long as I do my duty? The world's a
sort of feast, where men gather to get food which they relish. I
find mine here and there, and do not ask who is the gardener.
Enough if, when I pluck and eat, my appetite smacks its lips.
As for the captain's rages, none know them better than myself;
but I fear no man that ever stepped a quarter-deck, and he knows
it! But you are mistaken: I take no liberties with his wife that
are not the custom of the Spaniard. We dance together, and
before his eyes.

“Ay, but he's an Englishman; and what the Spaniard sees no
harm in, the Englishman winces at. And dancing's one thing,
but regular hugging another. There's that fandango, for instance,
which you and she are so fond of. Would you like to see your
wife carrying on such a game with another man?”

“When I marry, my wife may carry it on if she pleases. But,
so long as I have my senses, and know what other men's wives
are, you will not catch me putting my neck into the halter. I am
quite satisfied with another man's wife at a fandango.”

“Very well, perhaps, so long as he's satisfied; but if it's the
captain, be sure to keep your heels in running order, if he happens
to break loose. He's not suspicious, not jealous; he's got
too much pride for that, I'm thinking; but if ever he thinks you
grow saucy, and go too far, he'll make no more bones of breaking
your bones than he would of cleaving a Spaniard to the chine. I
can tell you there's not a man in the ship but sees and says you
go too far, and will be brought up some day by a taut rope and a
short turn. It's one thing to dance with the lady; but to do it as
you do, with so much unction — to bring her up to your bosom,
and squeeze her so closely, and keep at it so long — it neither
agrees with the captain's bile nor with the music. You do n't
keep proper time, Molyneaux; and devils seize me, if any husband
will keep proper temper long, if the thing goes on. For my

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part, if 't was my wife, I'd soon have you ashore, broadsword to
broadsword.”

“And get your skull split in the performance.”

“That might be. But, in a case of that kind, you 'd find even me
an ugly customer; and as for the captain, let me tell you, clever
as you are at fence, you would n't stand three minutes before him.
He'd beat down all your guards before you could say `Jack Robinson,
' and slice off head or arm, making clean work of it, not
leaving you chance for a single prayer. Now, do you look to it.
The captain begins to grow a little restiff; the wife's a silly creature,
who can't see; and your very impudence will help to shut
your eyes and open his, where a wiser fellow would never be
suspected, by keeping wide awake himself.”

“My dear Eckles, do you never suspect yourself of being tedious.
Other men would only think you envious; but the envy
is forgivable; the dullness never.”

“You are the most conceited ass, Molyneaux; and your ears
will bring you to the pillory. I envious! and of you, I suppose?
Oh, that a man's calf should turn his brains so completely!”

The young men were both dressing for the festa when this dialogue
took place: Molyneaux was drawing on his silken stocking,
and stroking the limb with evident complacency. Hence the reference
of his companion to the particular member. The sarcasm
of the junior member fell innocuous on the ears of his senior; in
fact, provoked his laughter only. He was too well fortified by
self-esteem. It was an additional tribute to the merits of his legs.
But this must suffice for clues in this progress. Meanwhile,
return we to the festa.

Molyneaux served the cates and viands. Zulieme shared with
him, helping him in turn. Eckles, more respectfully apart, was
rather a spectator than participator in the scene. He ate and
drank, it is true. He had a genuine English appetite. The sailors
were dispersed in the woods, making merry after their fashion,
little groups of them forming under so many trees, and drinking,
eating, and gambolling, like young donkeys in a pleasant
pasturage. Very soon, finding her mistress absorbed in his gallantries
with Molyneaux, Sylvia took herself off to a social circle
of more freedom, among her favorites of the crew. Phipps was
not so modest as to suppose that he could draw off with safety;

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and Lieutenant Eckles, though feeling himself de trop, was yet,
for this very reason, unwilling to withdraw. He sat; looked
on uneasily; rose and stood about; was sometimes spoken to, and
sometimes spoke; but formed no essential member of the tableau.

And the rich wines of Sicily and Madeira were soon put in
circulation; and the joyous Zulieme seemed to yield herself
wholly to the intoxication of the scene. Her bright eyes sparkled
back to those of her cavalier. Her lively tones answered to his
subdued and sentimental ones.

But it was somewhat disquieting to him that she should talk
merrily, in answer to his saddest murmur; that there should be
nothing sad either in her looks or words. She was a little too
much the child, at play, for him. He could better prefer a little
more of that Anglo-Norman intensity which conducts so readily
from play to passion.

But where should Zulieme learn that sentiment which is the
due medium for such transition? It was neither in heart nor
head; and the hopes of any progress on the part of our roué
could be predicated only of her exuberance; the loose, familiar
habits of her race; her ignorance of all concentrative passion; her
butterfly caprice and infantile restlessness. Such a character
naturally baffled the usual arts of the courtly gallant. He relies
upon the use of a conventional sentiment of which she had never
learned the A B C. That sort of eloquence — a compound, in
which fancy relieves, yet reconciles us to passion; which is enforced
by sadly-searching glances; soft, low tones, melting into
murmurs — all these, the more common agencies in such a game,
were wanting in their wonted potency, dealing with so light a creature.
She was willing enough to sport on the edge of the precipice,
but only because she was so totally ignorant of any precipice
in existence. Sin is usually a thing of great intensities, by which
one is hurried onward in repeated provocation; the merely loitering
nature is as frequently diverted from sin — that is, the sin of
passion — as it is from positive virtues, by its mere caprices; and
Zulieme Calvert, née Montano, was one whom the sound of a fiddle
could divert from a death-bed — whom the grateful occupation of
costuming herself for a festa, where she was to be seen of many
lovers, would suffice to win from the embraces of the most ardent
whom she herself preferred over all the rest.

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How shall Lieutenant Molyneaux beguile such a nature to a
moment of serious thought of love? for he can only prevail by
inspiring her with some such mood.

Well, he spoke of love, of hearts naturally twinned by Heaven,
denied by man; afflicted with mutual yearnings, but with great
barriers of convention between: not insurmountable, however,
thank Heaven! Love will find out a way — why not? Is love,
decreed of Heaven, to be denied of man? Shall these mutual
hearts be defrauded of their mutual rights? And what are these
barriers that rise up to conflict with the purposes of Heaven?
Are they not pretexts and impediments of merely human artifice?
And shall those who have Heaven's sanction upon their affections—
shall they submit to these human artifices?

Such was the sort of stuff, of an ancient fashion, which the roué
finds stereotyped to his hands in the old romances, with which
our amorous lieutenant regaled the ears of Zulieme Calvert, in
the effort to arouse her fancies. The case was, of course, put
abstractly.

And he looked so languid and sad, so wretchedly interesting,
while he said it, that poor Zulieme sighed too, and looked very
wretched herself for a moment, and said:

“'T was, indeed, very sad and very cruel, Mr. Molyneaux; and
I wonder why people do submit to such denial. I 'm sure I
would n't. If I loved a gentleman I 'd have him, and he should
have me, and I 'd no more mind what mamma said than I 'd mind
Sylvia. But I do n't think such things happen often, lieutenant.
I do n't think love makes one so wretched. If it did, 't would
be no better than grief or melancholy. Now, when I was in love,
I was always the gayest creature in the world. I told everybody.
I had a hundred friends, and we talked of it all the time;
and we made songs about it, and dances —”

“Dances!”

“Yes! we made dances about it; and one played the gentleman,
and the other the lady. And oh! you should have seen us:
how we bowed to each other, and sidled by each other, and smiled
and looked up, and sighed and looked down; and then, on a sudden,
the gentleman seized the lady in his arms, and drew her up
to him, and gave her such a kiss. Oh! I vow, when I was in
love, or only playing love, it was the most joyous time of my life.

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and I was never so gay — so happy. Love never made me
wretched.”

“But was this when you married the captain? He did not
court you in that way, did he?”

“Oh! no! — poor fellow, he could n't do much courting, any
way. When I first saw him, he was half dead. Father brought
him home. He was wrecked, you know, and cast away; and he
and Belcher travelled over the isthmus, till he was taken sick,
and brought to our hacienda. And he was so sick! He hardly
knew anybody; was out of his head; could see nothing; and
talked all sorts of things about England, and fighting, and a lady
whom he called Olive. It was always Olive — Olive, Olive!
And he spoke so softly and sweetly, and I could see that he was
a handsome man, and a brave, though he was so feeble. And so,
when he called me `Olive,' I answered him; and I nursed him;
and he was so pleased, and I was so pleased to nurse him. He
was like a doll, and I washed his face and bathed his head, and I
combed his hair, and all that did him good; and when he was
raving, he kissed my hands, and called me his dear Olive, and I
let him call me so, and answered him, and never told him that I
was not Olive, but Zulieme. And I sang and played to him on
the guitar, and when he got better we played together. Oh! he
was a great doll for me, and it was in playing together that we
made love and carried on our courtship. It was very funny.
Such plays as we had — such rompings! And I taught him how
to dance our Spanish dances; and he sang with me — he 's got a
beautiful voice for singing; and I chased him through the orange-groves,
and found him out where he used to hide himself; for he
loved too much to hide himself among the thick groves; and he
looked so sad when I found him; but I cheered him up, and he
would smile, and sing and dance with me, all so good; till, one
day, he started up in a sort of passion, and looked very grand, and
said I should be his little wife; and I said, `Yes, why not? it will
be so funny to become a wife.' And so the priest married us. But
he 's changed since then — he is not funny now. He 's so serious,
and so cross! — all you English are so cross and quarrelsome.”

“But I am not.”

“Oh! yes, you are, though you do try to please me and make
me happy.”

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“Ah, Zulieme, what you call love is very different from what I
mean. I could teach you a better sort of love — more sweet,
more precious — which would fill your soul rather than your
eyes; for which you would be willing to die; for which, alone,
one who knows what it is would be willing to live!”

“Do teach me, then. I 'd like to know every sort of love. I
suppose it 's different in all countries; but I do n't think you
English know much about it; at least, I do n't like your rough,
hard, quarrelsome sort of love. It seems to me as if you are
always angry when you love. There 's Harry, now — why, when
he made love to me, it was like a tiger. I did n't know but he
wanted to eat me. And when he spoke of love, even before we
were married, it was as if he spoke of some great sorrow and
trouble; for he groaned, and clasped his head in his hands, and
then he would start, and dash out into the groves, and almost run,
till he got into the thickest part, where the sun never shines.”

“I would teach you another sort of love from his,” responded
the courtier in low tones, looking sadly sweet, with that intense
stare of the eyes, which, with a slight dash of melancholy in the
gaze, makes the usual ideal of devoted and inveterate passion,
among professed artists.

“Oh! do n't look so wretched!” cried the lady, flinging a handful
of Brazil nutshells into his face. “It 's enough to scare love
out of the country to look so while you talk about it. Do n't
you — you hurt me.”

He had seized her hand, and would have carried it to his lip,
when a guttural sound, rather a grunt than groan, aroused him to
the consciousness that there were other parties on the ground.
With a fierce glance he looked around, and met the ominous visage
of his brother lieutenant, who, fearing lest the scene should
too greatly shock his own, or the modesty of some other party,
sent forth the doleful ejaculation, which had arrested the gallantries
of our cavalier. Molyneaux could have taken him by the
throat.

“Oh! you had reason to groan, Mr. Eckles,” said the laughing
lady; “for such a doleful picture as Mr. Molyneaux made of
himself was absolutely distressing. Now hear me tell of love:
when you love, you must look sweet, and bright, and happy;
you must sing, and you must dance; and go together into the

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groves, and get oranges, and bananas, and figs, and nuts; and
then have a chase, and pelt one another as you run, till you 're
ready to drop with laughter, and only shake it off to dance. For
you must n't laugh out when you 're dancing — only smile; you
need all your breath, you know, if you want to dance beautifully.
But, hark! Phipps has gone off with his fiddle, and the sailors
are at it. Hear what a shouting and shuffling: and that Sylvia,
she 's gone, I vow, and I suppose she 's footing it with the best of
them. How funny! Come, let 's go and see.”

And she sprang up, gathered up her skirts with one hand,
grasped the arm of Molyneaux with the other, and crying to
Eckles, “Come, Mr. Eckles, won't you?” she lilted away in a
capering motion, which required that Molyneaux should adopt a
new step, somewhat difficult to his execution, in order to keep
time with hers. Eckles slowly following, with uplifted hands and
eyes, the three soon buried themselves in the deeper woods, where
a more inspiriting and less pathetic action was in progress.

CHAPTER V. SIMPLY, LEGS AT OUTLAWRY.

“The piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,” &c.
—Tam O'Shanter.

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Sailors ashore have a proverbial character for rollicking.
So, too, is High Life Below Stairs matter for the proverbialist.
Colts on a common, boys in the holidays, girls at a match or
merry-making: fools all, you say. Oh, ridiculous moralist! throw
off your cloak of wisdom for a while, as Prospero does his magic
garment, and relieve your shoulders of the dignity which should
break any camel's back. Do not require us to apologize for these
silly ones, because you claim to be wise or virtuous. “Shall there
be no more cakes and ale,” because you have come to your inheritance
from Solomon? Sessa! let these children slide; and stop
your ears at the uproar, but do not complain, lest Apollo stretches
them for you to the dimensions which he gave to those of Midas.

Great is the uproar, wondrous the antics, measureless the fun,
among our rollickers on shore! Is it Bo-peep, Hide and Seek,
Hunt the Slipper, or only a new fashion of the fandango? The
apes — the urchins — the grimalkins — the donkeys! what are
they after? What a charivari! Jack Tar, Ben Bobstay, Jim
Bowline, Bill Bowsprit, Mike Mainsail, and a score besides, are
all busy in a merry contest for the hand of Sylvia, that model
among mulattresses.

And all this to the perpetual clang of Phipps's fiddle; and the
yell and laugh chase each other through the woods, till every
sleeping echo, starting up in terror, screams it out again from
swamp and thicket!

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