CHAPTER XIX.

FANDANGO ON ONE LEG.

"God! 'tis a fearsome thing to see That pale wan man's mute agony-- Those pinioned arms, those hands that ne'er Shall be lifted again--not even in prayer! That heaving chest! Enough; 'tis done! The bolt has fallen! the spirit is gone."

Day dawned in the east. The early spikes of morning shot up in rosy bands from behind the lofty hills of Cuba and announced the coming of the sun. The inlet and basin, framed in by their rocky walls, were still clothed in the gloom of night, and dimly reflecting the fading stars on the calm unruffled surface where the schooner and felucca were moored. Away off in the distance a dense white misty vapor hung flat and low over the lagoon and thickets of mangroves, with not a breath of air to disturb the noxious fog or quiver a leaf in the silent groves. The revels, too, of the drunken sailors had long since ceased; the sentinels, with their cutlasses in the sheaths, paced slowly to and fro before the doors of the sheds, and the look-outs at the signal-stations and battery peered through the early dawn to seaward; else not a sound or moving thing, save a teal or two fluttering with a sharp cry up and down the lagoon; the music of the tiny ripples lapping on the shelly beach; and the low roar, in a deep bass, breaking and moaning over the ledge beyond the island. Such was the appearance of things where our scene is laid in the Twelve League Group of Keys, on a Sunday morning, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and five.

Half a mile, perhaps, inland from the sheds where the sailors lived, and beneath the steep face of the ridge-like crag which split the island in two parts, stood a low chapel, built of loose stones nicely fitted together and roofed with tiles. A rough iron cross was fastened over the doorless entrance, and at the other end was a stone balustrade, with a rude painting of the Virgin over the altar, on which stood four or five tall brass candlesticks and a lighted taper. Outside the building was a narrow and secluded inclosure, surrounded by a low wall of coral rocks, with a few head-stones marked with black crosses--the graves of the pirates whose bones reposed beneath. At one end of this burial-place was still another subdivision, where stood ten upright flat white stones, on whose faces were rudely carved initial letters, with the years in which the eternal sleepers had been laid beneath the sand. Far and near sprang up close and almost impenetrable thickets of cactus, whose sharp and pointed needle-shoots defied the passage of any thing more bulky than land-crabs and lizards. One or two narrow pathways had been cut out here and there, but they were overgrown again by the stubborn, hardy vegetation; and only with the risk of losing one's trowsers, and having one's legs cut in gashes, could a human being struggle through it.

Within the chapel kneeled a dozen or more of the "Centipede's" crew, the coarse and sodden faces and uncombed locks, from their night's debauch, in striking contrast to the place and the apparent devoutness of manner in which they crossed themselves while the rites of the Church were going on. Before the altar stood Padre Ricardo, with his breviary on the chancel beneath the taper, and chanting forth from his deep lungs the services of the mass. In a few minutes the unholy hands and lips which performed the solemn ceremony ceased word and gesture, and with a sonorous benediction at the elevation of the Host, and a tinkle of a bell, the sailors arose from their knees and again staggered back to the sheds, to slumber through the day. When all had gone, the padre clasped his missal, tucked it into his bosom, and making the sign of the cross with a genuflexion before the Virgin, the sacrilegious wretch turned and left the chapel.

Pursuing the winding path which led to his own habitation for a certain distance, he then turned to the left, and carefully picking his way through the sharp cactus and Spanish bayonets along the face of the crag, he stopped at a yawning fissure which gaped open in the rock. Here, too, the same wiry vegetation had crept, and it was with great difficulty, and many an "_Ave!_" and "_Santa Maria!_" that the padre succeeded in passing into the dark, rugged mouth of the cavern.

"By the ashes of San Lorenzo!" he muttered, "there are serpents and venomous insects in this pit of purgatory. Oh, _misericordia_! what has pierced my leg? Why should my son drag me through this hole? Ah! blessed Saint Barnabas! a slimy reptile has crossed my instep!"

Feeling with his outspread hands in his fright, as he gradually made his way into the dripping cavern, getting narrower and lower as he proceeded, he at last, after stumbling prayerfully along for about a hundred and fifty yards, came to a loose pile of stones. Here opened another low narrow fissure on the left, and, in some doubt, he was about to enter; but the noise he made by stepping on a stone was answered by the hissing warning of a serpent, and the scared padre fell back at his full length in a pool of stagnant slimy water.

"_O Madre di Dios!_ I am stung by a cobra! Holy Virgin! my new cassock ruined too! _Ave Maria!_ light me out of this abode of the devil!"

Slowly recovering, however, from his fright, he once more regained his feet, and, after a few steps, which he was obliged to accomplish by scraping his crown against the jagged rocks above, his outstretched hands touched an iron-bound door.

"_Gracias à Dios!_ Thanks be to all the saints, I am here at last; but, alas! curses on me, I shall be obliged to return by the same path unless my son allows me to escape by the casa."

Cautiously searching with his fingers as he muttered these words, he touched a bolt, and, grasping it with both hands, drew it partly out like the knob of a bell. Then, placing his ear to the door, he presently heard a rattling, creaking noise, as if a beam of timber, with pulley and chain, was being raised from behind the entrance. When the sound ceased the door yielded to the padre's sturdy shoulder, and there was just room to admit his portly body. Here the passage was wider, the rock evidently chiseled away by the hands of man, and on one side was an artificial chamber, blasted out of the solid rock, with a narrow door with heavy iron bolts on the outside. At this opening the padre paused and listened. No sound caught his ear at first, but as he clutched the bolt and it grated back in its bands, he was saluted by such a volley of frightful curses as to make him start back and cross his ample breast. It was the voice of Master Gibbs, lying there on a low iron settle in the noisome dungeon, with not a ray of light to cheer him, and only a jug of water and some weevily biscuit to save him from starvation. All through the day and during the long, long hours of the awful night, in pain and suffering from his lopped-off limb and bruises, had he lain on his hard bed with clenched hands, blaspheming and impotently raging in his agony and despair. No prayer, however, dawned in his ruthless heart, or was breathed from his brutal lips; but curses upon curses came thick and fast, till his tongue refused to give them utterance, and he fell back in utter exhaustion. As the noise, however, of the bolt struck his ear, he clutched the stone water-jug from the floor, and hurled it, with a yell of execrations, toward the door, where the fragments fell with a clattering crash on the stone pavement.

Grinding his teeth in his frightful passion, he howled,

"Let me but once put these hands on your bloodstained carcass, and if the mother that bore ye will know her spawn again, my name's not Bill Gibbs! Ha! you miserable swab, with your soft words and white hands! when I get out of this hole I'll blow you and your infarnal hounds to ----! Give me fair play, and, even on one of my legs, I'll cut the cowardly heart out of you, Captain Brand! Come in, will ye? ye son of the devil, and I'll bite the tongue out of your mouth by the roots!"

Here the hoarse and panting wretch again ceased his roarings, and the padre timidly opened the door.

"Ha! who's that? Babette?"

"No, my son, it is your good Padre Ricardo, come to console you."

What the maimed villain replied to the priest, and what means the holy father took to allay the passion and assuage the sorrows of the man lying helpless in the dungeon, or whether successful in his mission, is not important to state in detail. An hour later, however, the priest seemed relieved in body and spirit as he retired from the loathsome hole, and shooting the bolt as he closed the door, cautiously felt his way along the dark and narrow passage. Presently, as he turned an angle, a ray of light from the loopholes of the great stone vault beneath the pirate's dwelling lighted his pathway; and a moment after, with a hearty sigh of satisfaction, he seized a cord above his head and gave it a jerk. A bell sounded above, and then a large, square-hinged trap-hatch fell down, swinging gently to and fro from the beams above. At the same time the padre put his arms about a square wooden stanchion which supported the floor of the saloon, and then painfully sticking his toes in some deep-cut notches at the sides, he slowly began to mount upward. When, however, his oily shaved crown appeared nearly at the level of the floor, a vigorous grasp was laid on his shoulders, and he was pulled up like a flapping lobster and rolled into the apartment. It was Captain Brand who kindly assisted the holy father, and it was the captain's hollow laugh which saluted him in his torn and soiled raiment, as, with difficulty, he regained his perpendicular.

"Laugh not, _hijo mio_, at my sorrowful plight," said the bruised Ricardo, with some asperity; "I have met with dangers of venomous serpents, and been stabbed cruelly by those villainous cactus."

"But I raised the beam, my padre, the moment you made the signal."

"You did, my son; but what I suffered in the cavern was as nothing to what I endured when I entered the dungeon of the English Gibbs. _Jesus Maria_, what an infidel he is!"

"You did not find his spirit subdued, then, by bread and water?"

"Far from it, my friend. He rages like a wild beast. He consigns your body and soul to everlasting torments! But, what is more impious still," went on the padre, as he crossed himself, "he damned your holy father, and hoped I would roast in hell!"

"But he confessed, Ricardo, and you gave him absolution?"

"If calling me thief and assassin, and hurling his stone water-jug at my head, be confession and forgiveness of sins, the ceremony has been performed. Ah! my son, he needs no more mercy in this world!"

"Of course not, my padre; and we will give him a short shrift and a long rope."

"Babette!" continued Captain Brand. "Ah! my Baba, you have not forgotten to feed our jolly Gibbs there below? No? I thought not. Well, then, it is Sunday, you know; give him a pint of pure rum for his morning's draught. And, Baba, my beauty, slip a pair of iron ruffles over his wrists, and then pass a cloth over those bloodshot eyes of his, and lug him here beneath this hatch. Go down by your own ladder, and be quick, my Baba, as I wish my breakfast presently!"

All this was said in a cool and rather an affectionate tone, as Captain Brand sipped a spoonful or two of chocolate from a cup of Dresden china. Then turning to the padre, he said,

"You would perhaps like a cordial, my father, to take the chill off your stomach? Yes. You will find some capital Curaçoa in that stand of bottles there."

The padre, forgetful of the dignity of his calling, shuffled with indecent haste to the spot indicated, and, without going through the form of filling one of the diminutive thimble-shaped glasses in the stand, he boldly raised the silver-netted flask to his lips, and sucked away until it was nearly empty. Then seating himself on the settee, he lugged out his illuminated missal and pored over its contents. Captain Brand occupied himself with opening the loop of the silk rope which fell from the ceiling, and securing the end firmly on the stout cleat at the wall.

So passed the time until a noise beneath the room of a voice in anger, and a body bumped and dragged along, once more attracted the attention of those in the saloon.

"Oh ho! is that you, Master Gibbs?" exclaimed Captain Brand, in a cheerful voice. "You have risen early; but stop that profane language, my friend, or you will never see daylight again!"

The maimed ruffian only muttered, "Your friend, eh? blindfolded and manacled!" And then, apparently abashed by the cool, commanding tone of his superior, he held his peace.

"Well, you are quiet, my lad. Now we'll see if we can't hoist you up here in the saloon."

"Thank ye, sir!" said Gibbs, aloud; and then he muttered to himself, "Let me jest get one grip of ye, and I'll show ye how quiet I'll be."

"Do you think we shall need assistance, my son?" whispered the padre into the ear of his patron.

"_Diavolo!_ No. I never wanted help in these little affairs, except in the case of that violent Yankee whaler, who gave us much trouble, you know, and we were obliged to call Pedillo," replied the captain, in the same low tone. Then, raising his voice, he said,

"Hark ye, Master Gibbs! Babette will lift you off the stones, and the padre and I will raise you up to the room here. You don't weigh so much as you did before you had your leg hacked off with a hand-saw--ho! and I dare say you are as light now as a dried stockfish! Up with him, Baba! There--steady! all right--here you are!"

Saying this, Captain Brand, with the assistance of the stout negress and the padre, raised the once burly ruffian, with a vigorous hoist that made him groan, to the floor of the saloon, where they laid him out at full length on his back.

"Wait a moment, my hearty, till the hatch is raised, and then we will raise you. Unpleasant position, no doubt," continued Captain Brand, as the trap came up and was secured by a spring; "but then, you know, you _would_ have that pin of yours cut off, and somehow you have been so careless as to dispose of the nice leg you had the other day, made out of the spruce fore-top-mast of the 'Centipede'--a very tough bit of a spar it was."

Here Master Gibbs grated his teeth and grinned hideously.

The captain smiled like a demon, and, approaching the prostrate cripple, said cheerfully--ay, in a frank and hearty tone--

"Now, my padre, place a comfortable chair for Master Gibbs, and we will help him to a seat."

The considerate Ricardo placed a large, roomy Manilla chair on the fatal trap, and then aided his chief in lifting their victim to the position assigned him. As they performed this operation, the captain, with the gentleness of a tiger before he strikes his prey, and with a wink to the padre, lightly passed the noose of the silk rope over the ruffian's hairy throat, where it lay like a snake with its slack coil squirming at the back of the chair.

"Now, Master Gibbs, I am about to remove this bandage from your beautiful red eyes," said Captain Brand, in his cold, chilling, deliberate manner, "and if you so much as move when daylight shines before you, I'll blow your brains out."

Here the pirate leisurely cocked a pistol close to his subordinate's ear, removed the bandage, and laid the weapon on the table within reach.

"No noise either, Master Gibbs!" continued Captain Brand, as he stirred up the remains of his chocolate and gulped it down; "for it is Sunday morning, and we must respect the feelings of our padre. You were unkind to him, he tells me, just now, and even said some disrespectful things of me. What have _I_ done to vex you?"

The manacled wretch tried to raise his horny hands to his face when the cloth was removed from his eyes, and rub those organs, while he glared suspiciously around; but the captain pointed with his white finger in a threatening way to the cocked pistol, and Master Gibbs let his hands fall again.

"Well, Captain Brand, I s'pose now you're going to treat me as a faithful man who has sarved under you ought to be treated; and I'm willin' to forgive what has passed."

There was no look of forgiveness, however, in those brutal bloodshot eyes, nor much signs of repentance in those grinding teeth and compressed lips.

"Why, no, my Gibbs, _I_ am _not_ going to treat you as a faithful man, but I tell you what I will do"--here the captain moved his chair nearer till his straw slipper touched the spring of the trap--"I will drink a glass of grog with you in forgetfulness of the past and forgiveness for the future."

"Thank ye, Captain Brand; I do feel dry. That stuff Babette gave me a while ago didn't touch the right spot, and I'll be glad to jine you."

"Ah! _bueno_, my old friend; you _shall_ drink something that _will_ touch the right spot! What shall it be? you have only to name it."

"I'll take a toss of that old brandy you gave me the other day, if it's the same to you, sir."

"Oh, Master Gibbs, it's all the same to me. Delighted I am to oblige you! _Padre mio!_ a glass of old Cognac for our friend--a tumblerful; a wine-glass will do for me."

The padre poured out the brandy as he was desired, handed the lesser glass to the captain, and the tumbler he placed in the locked hands of the victim. Slowly and painfully the subdued ruffian raised the glass to his mouth, careful not to spill a drop; then, before draining it, he cleared his throat, while at the same time the captain rose to his feet, his right foot resting a little on the heel, and held the wine-glass before him.

"Now, then, Master Gibbs, for a toss that will touch the right spot."

"Ay, ay, captain!" said Gibbs; "and here's forgiveness for the future."

Scarcely had the words been uttered, and the liquor began to gurgle down the hairy throat of the manacled wretch, than the pirate before him pressed his foot with a quick, nervous action on the spring.

Like a flash the trap fell, carrying chair and man with it. The hinges of the hatch creaked, the wicker-work chair fell with a bound on the stone floor below, the heavy beam overhead gave a jarring quiver as the strong silk rope brought up with a shuddering surge on the cleat where it was belayed at the wall, and with a gasping, choking cry of pain mingled with the ring of the shattered tumbler on the pavement, the ruffian of a hundred crimes fell full three feet, and hung struggling in the death agony. With almost superhuman force he raised his clenched hands and struck his forehead till the manacles were twisted like wire by the effort, spinning around too by the lopsided weight of his body, while the beam above yielded slightly to the strain, and the deadly cord, no longer squirming, but taut as a bar of iron, held the wretch in its knotted embrace, clasped tight around the throat. In a minute or two the hands ceased beating the inflamed face and head, and fell with a clank before the body; the legs gave a few convulsive twitches, a last and violent spasm shook the frame, and there Master Gibbs hung, a warm dead lump of clay.

While this murderous business was going on, and the poor crippled wretch was struggling in the jaws of death, the padre was chanting with his profane tongue from his open breviary the _Salve Domine_, and his patron coolly took down a telescope and swept it over the blue water to seaward. When, however, after a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and the body of their victim gave no more signs of life, the captain laid down the telescope as the padre closed his missal, and remarked quietly, while glancing critically down at the suspended body,

"He did not go off so easy as I had anticipated; his bull-neck is not broken, though the knot was perfectly well placed. However, he is stone dead, and we will lower him down. You, my padre, will bury him!"

"_Hijo mio!_ son of mine! spare me that troublesome duty. Would you have me drag such a carcass through the cavern and consign him to consecrated earth, when he refused the last holy offers of salvation?"

"_Bueno_, my padre, I respect your feelings! You need not put him under the sand; take him merely to his late dungeon, and lay him decently on his bed."

"Thank you, my son; your orders shall be obeyed!"

Glad, apparently, to be relieved from farther exertion, though with manifest symptoms of disgust, the priest, more infamous even than the scoundrel he had assisted in hanging, clumsily descended the hatchway by the way he came up, and awaited the movements of his chief. The captain stepped to the wall, and, casting off the turns from the cleat, he slowly lowered the body down till it rested on the pavement.

"Unbend the rope from his neck, my padre, and hitch it on to that Manilla chair. There--all right! you may return this way and breakfast with me."

Saying this, Captain Brand rounded up the chair, detached the silk rope, hung the loop in its accustomed place, and then waited the reappearance of his confederate. Not many minutes elapsed before the padre, having performed the last rites, again ascended the stanchion, and was assisted above the floor by his chief. Then both together got hold of a ring-bolt in the trap, drew it up and secured the spring, placing square bits of mahogany over the countersunk apertures, so as to prevent accidental falls or hangings of themselves. Even while performing these mechanical operations, the priest puffed out an account of his proceedings below: how he had dragged the body to the dungeon; how, when there, he had inadvertently stumbled and fallen on the top of it; and that his lips--_maldito!_--came in contact with the open mouth of the late Master Gibbs; but when he had recovered from the horror of this frightful caress, he had said a short prayer and bolted the door.

"You have done well, my padre; and now let us break our fast. Babette, a couple of broiled snappers and a cold duck! Be lively, old lady, for I have business to attend to after breakfast. _Hola, mi padre_, will you wash your hands in water before sitting down? No! _bueno!_ I will myself take a dip all over."

No, the oily Ricardo never washed his hands, save wetting the tips of his fingers in holy water in the chapel; and, indeed, he rarely touched water in any quantity either outside or in; and it was with a look of surprise, not unmingled with contempt, that he beheld his patron retire for a bath.