Chapter 19

DOOM OF DOÑA LUCIA.

"I went into the storm, And mocked the billows of the tossing sea; I said to Fate, What wilt thou do to me? I have not harmed a worm!

"Thy dim eyes tell a tale-- A piteous tale of vigils; and the trace Of bitter tears is on thy beauteous face; Beauteous, and yet so pale!"

"Thus it ever is, _caballeros_, and ever will be," went on Captain Brand, in rather a reflecting strain. "There is a point to begin and stop, and an end to joy as well as grief. We should, however, take the world as it comes and as it goes. I do, and so do you, _compadre_!"--pitching a cigar spear fashion at Don Ignaçio to attract his attention--"and, therefore, we should never look too far ahead, and live only for the present.

"Indulging then in this train of thought, as I set down my lovely burden here, and the cloak fell from her shoulders, I was prepared for any thing which might happen. I wore a slightly different costume at the time than that she had been accustomed to see me in, as I always do when I think there might be a chance of a surprise or trap laid for us in entering the inlet. So, instead of fine linen and velvet, I had on a red flannel shirt, canvas trowsers, with a cutlass slung to my side, and a pair of pistols in my belt. I don't think I appear handsome in that rig, but the fellows at my back somehow think it is becoming to me, especially when we are engaged in a hand-to-hand fight! What say you, _compadre_?"

The Don said nothing, and merely waved his fore finger, as if dress was not a matter to which he devoted much attention. He thought, however, that sleeves should be cut loose for knives when the pockets were not too small for pistols; but he uttered no word.

"_Bueno!_ There I stood"--pointing to the corner of the room as he spoke--"drenched with rain, and there stood my tall and lovely wife!

"The saloon was brilliantly lighted; a profusion of plants and flowers were clustered here, there, and every where, on cabinets and tables, in striking contrast to the display exhibited yonder in that armory, where pikes, muskets, and knives were gleaming through the open door.

"Quick as the lightning which was piercing deep into the inmost crevices of the rocks and lighting up the crag without, Lucia's dark eyes flashed around the apartment from floor to ceiling, from flower to blade, resting an instant on the frame of miniatures there--hers was not among the collection _then_; it is the one in the middle, doctor--"

There were no knives on the table, or else, from the deadly look the doctor gave, he might have perhaps sprinkled the narrator's heart's blood on the floor.

"--Until at last her gaze of terror rested on _me_! No one, I fancy, can tell the power of Spanish girls, who has never seen them when the whole passion of their souls, either in love or hate, comes pouring in a black blaze of jet from their gleaming eyes.

"Advancing a step toward me, with her white hands clasped together, she said, in a hurried, beseeching voice--and low as was the sound, I heard it distinctly during the crashing thunder which shook the rocks of the crag to their foundations--

"'_Señor!_ where am I? My father! Who--who--in the name of the Blessed Virgin, art _thou_?'

"Again giving a look of the utmost horror around the room, she pressed her hands to her eyes, and said, in the same low, distinct tone,

"'Speak, _señor_! For the love of our holy Savior, speak!'

"I felt that the girl had saved me, by her own instinctive perception, a world of painful explanations, and I replied,

"'Lucia! I divine that all farther concealments are useless; you are in the haunt of the most noted pirate of these seas, and that man stands before you.'

"_Caballeros!_" continued Captain Brand, "had my pretty prize swooned away, or fallen down in a fit, or gone into hysterics and torn her hair out by the roots, I should not have been greatly surprised; but she did none of those things. On the contrary, she became as calm as marble--frightfully so, in fact--and pushing back the bands of her magnificent tresses from her pale forehead, she raised her round white arm aloft, with her slender fore finger quivering like the tongue of a viper in mid air, and then poured forth such a torrent of awfully impressive words that I quailed before her.

"Yes, _señores_, I am no coward, take me when you will; but on this occasion I must honestly admit that I stood powerless before the gaze and gesture of that slight, delicately-formed woman.

"'Pirate--wretch--monster! may the curses of hell be heaped upon thee! Murderer--betrayer! may thy heart be burned, and thy soul blasted forever!'

"I need not pain you, _señores_, by reciting the cruel words that came hissing through her closed teeth, nor yet farther describe the terrible concentrated gaze of hate and fury which streamed from those gleaming eyes. Suffice it to say, that though often afterward I was treated in the same manner, yet, on the occasion alluded to, I cut short the interview by summoning Babette to see her mistress to her chamber, and then, glad to escape, I went out of the house and attended to the duties which required my presence."

The padre, with his flat lips half open, eagerly drinking in--with his Santa Cruz punch--the words of his patron; the doctor, calm, unmoved now, and thoughtful; the one-eyed old rascal, still puffing his cigarettes and allowing no rest to his uneasy, suspicious optic, all sat listening, with each an interest peculiarly his own, to the fate of Doña Lucia. The narrator leisurely arose and held his hourly confab with the man at the signal-station, and then returning to his place, proceeded with his discourse:

"I shall pass rapidly over, my friends, many little incidents of a rather unpleasant nature which occurred here, in this my rocky retreat, for some months after the interview which I have described. I tried every argument and persuasion I was master of to bring my proud bride to reason, but to all my entreaties she turned a cold and chilling stare of obdurate hate. Day by day the intensity of her detestation grew stronger and stronger, and seemed to have become a part of her nature. Yes; the gentle, yielding girl I had won on board the 'Centipede' had now become as stern and unbending as a rock, and my controlling power over her mind and love was gone. I left her entirely to herself for some weeks, until one day I thought her passion might have subsided, and once more, attired in a rich and splendid suit, I came in here, as she sat like a marble statue at table. She never looked up at my entrance, but her eyes shone like stars as she mechanically went through the forms of the dinner laid before her.

"'Lucia!' I said, gayly. No answer by word or look. 'Lucia! _querida mia!_' I repeated, and, sinking on one knee beside her, attempted to take her hand.

"By all the saints, _señores_, that came near--very near--being the last time that I ever should kneel to a woman; for with a movement so sudden that I had barely time to leap aside, she snatched a long pointed carving-knife from the table and lunged full at my throat! The blade just grazed my jugular artery, inflicting a slight wound. But she never turned round to see the extent of her effort, and again sat calm and rigid at the table.

"This was my last visit save one. I had long before abandoned these comfortable quarters entirely, and occupied the rooms you do, _mi padre_, out there among the men. In fact, my stern young bride was in entire command of the island; and even my good Babette here stood in such awe of her that she always crossed herself when called to approach her mistress.

"Month by month matters went on in this way, until the rainy season had gone, and I was preparing for another cruise in the schooner; but hour by hour the consuming passion which flamed in the veins of Lucia was doing its work. I sometimes beheld her standing out on the veranda, tall and stately as ever; and when the moon was at the full, it threw its light upon her wan and sunken cheeks, and thin, wasted frame. Ay, there she stood, like an almost transparent statue of alabaster, with her dark eyes shining with an unearthly light, turned in one long tearless gaze upon the ledge and combing breakers to seaward. It was singular, too, the effect she produced even upon the horde of these brave fellows of mine, for no persuasion could induce a man of them to come within pistol-shot of that part of the house while she was thus keeping her nightly vigils. And as for Pedillo, he acquired such a superstitious dread of the girl he had married, and lived in such a state of abject terror, that I had serious thoughts of shooting him through the head to avoid the contaminating influence he exercised over his comrades.

"Well, _caballeros_, late one Saturday night, while the men were carousing and drinking success to the coming cruise--we were to sail on the following Monday--and while I was returning from my usual stroll to the Tiger's Trap to see the battery in order and the look-outs wide awake, I met Babette toddling along, nearly out of breath.

"'What is it, old lady?' You know, _amigos_, that Babette never spoke a word in her life, but she made signs to let me know that I was wanted at the crag, and that there was no time to be lost. I quickened my pace, and, preceded by Babette, I once more darkened my own threshold. The curtains and hangings were all closely drawn in the saloon here, and it was dark as a tomb; but there was a light burning yonder in the passage leading to the chamber, and I made my way to the door.

"I shall never forget what I saw, though I should like to, as it comes to me sometimes in the night, or when I am left much alone by myself."

The pirate passed his hands over his eyes as if he saw something while he spoke, and then, letting his voice drop to an almost sepulchral pitch, he went on hurriedly:

"I stood at the door, _caballeros_, and looked in. On the bed, which was drawn to the middle of the chamber to get the air through the narrow loopholed windows, with the gauze curtains falling square on all sides, lay Lucia. Her attenuated frame scarcely presented an uneven surface beneath the snowy sheet which covered it. Her superb hair was spread in great black masses on the pillow, and her pale marble face reposed there like an ivory picture in an ebony setting. Her eyes were wide open, large and luminous, and her thin delicate hands were clasped around a silver and pearl crucifix, which rested on her hollow breast. A single taper in a silver lamp threw a lurid, flickering ray about the room, and beside it was Babette on her knees quivering with terror, while from one of the loopholed windows a broad white band of moonlight streamed directly across the pillow and face of the dying girl."

Captain Brand's face assumed a deathly pallor, and, with his icy blue eyes fixed on vacancy, and his voice sunk to a hoarse whisper, he went on:

"As I appeared in the portals of the door, Lucia slowly raised her fore finger, and beckoned me to approach. I could no more have resisted the summons than if a chain cable to a frigate's anchor had caught me in its iron coils, and was dragging me to the bottom of the sea. I moved to the foot of the bed.

"'_Pirato!_' came from her slightly-parted lips, in her old low and distinct tones. '_Pirato_, behold your cruel work! Destroyer of mother and child--of soul and body--may the curses of a dying woman and her unborn child haunt you by day and by night!' I was dumb, and my pulse stopped beating.

"'_Ave Maria purissima!_' were the last words that came in a sweet, pure whisper from her parted lips; she clasped the crucifix tighter, and the spirit departed. I tore aside the gauze net to lay my hand on her heart, when, on my soul! her right hand slowly relaxed its death-grasp on the crucifix, and, rising to a vertical line, with the fore finger pointing upward, quivered in the light of the waning moon, like, as it was, a supernatural warning! Yes, that finger--"

"Mamma! mamma!" came in a weak, plaintive voice from the piazza, while the villain, with his hands before him as if to shut out a frightful vision, and eyeballs starting from their sockets, was hoarsely whispering to his horror-stricken audience the last warning of the dead Lucia.

As the low moaning cry in the stillness which reigned around the saloon struck his ear, he sprang with a bound to his feet, and, quick as thought, with a pistol in each hand, he shouted, "Who's there?"

"It is the little sick boy, _señor_. Do him no harm at your peril!" and the doctor stood towering before the pirate's leveled weapons.

"_Maldito_ on the brat! Pshaw!" said Captain Brand, quieting down, and returning the pistols to his pockets. "How nervous I am! Excuse me, _caballeros_. I was thinking of something else."