CHAPTER XXXVI.

A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW.

He perceived the fear or horror he excited, and it seemed to amuse or flatter him.

I remembered his dreams, his outcries, and midnight terrors, when in the forecastle bunks; I thought of poor Captain Weston, of old Roberts the man-o'-war's man, who disappeared so mysteriously in the night, and of others whose blood was upon this man's hands and on his soul, and my flesh crept with loathing at our proximity.

What must his thoughts have been amid the awful solitude of that lonely isle before our arrival? I dared not attempt to imagine or to analyze them.

Why were the waves so sparing--why was Fate so favorable to a wretch like this? How came it to pass that a life so vile had been so marvellously protected? and when would the day of retribution come?

All these thoughts came upon me with rapidity. Antonio seemed almost to read my heart, for he laughed, and said in Spanish,--

"El diabolo! so we meet again. Ha! ha! I suppose you thought--_Oho Juan bobo_--it was all over with the Cubano when the studding-sail boom parted, and amid the laughter of these English dogs I fell away to leeward--to drown--to die in the trough of the sea--eh?"

I did not reply to the mocking question, as I was not yet in possession of all my faculties.

"Aha! Antonio el Cubano does not die so easily," resumed the Spanish Creole; "but now what am I to do with you?"

"You will release me, I hope, as I have never harmed you."

"For what purpose did you come up these rocks, hombre?" he asked, with a keen glance.

"Only to survey the island from a new point of view," I replied, evasively.

"The top of the mountain would be a better place for that purpose," he replied, grimly.

"But it is a much more laborious ascent."

"So the _Eugenie_ has been cast away?"

"She was struck by lightning, took fire, and was burned to the water edge."

On hearing this, Antonio ground his sharp teeth, and said, with a savage malediction,--

"Por grados, as I said before, I will rid the world of you all!"

"For myself," I began, with some agitation----

"If I permit you to return alive to these men," he replied, sternly, "you will enable them to track me out. But see you _this_," he added, showing me a revolver; "I will make them all food for the sea-gulls and the wild boars if they attempt to molest me."

It was one of those which had hung in Captain Weston's cabin. It appeared to be loaded and capped; and though very rusty, was still sufficiently dangerous. I remembered that he had put it in his breast before he fell overboard.

"As for you," he resumed, and paused.

"I never harmed _you_, as you have frequently said."

"But you _laughed_ as I swung at the end of the studding-sail boom. It was a fine joke to see a spar, with the world at one end and a poor devil holding on at the other! I can remember that, senor, though you may find it convenient to forget it."

"I am not aware, Antonio, that I did laugh," said I, in my most conciliatory tone.

"But I am quite aware of it, demonio," said he, furiously.

"Oh! why am I always doomed to meet this man?" I exclaimed bitterly.

"True," said he, with another malevolent grin, "I am a very horrid fellow; but we have met before we had the good luck to sail together."

"Before--I know it."

"At Teneriffe," said he; "up among the mountains."

"You were the sentinel who stood at the mouth of the cavern?"

"I was _not_, muchacho."

"Who or which, then?"

"He who was shot," said he, grinning.

"And who fell into the ventana?"

"Si, hombre!" (yes, man) replied the Cubano, with a shout of fierce laughter.

Absurd as this statement was, it was not without a horrid effect upon me for a moment, as he added,--

"Par los Santos! it is not so easy to kill Antonio!"

"Then I actually met you on the mountain side in Teneriffe?"

"So it would seem. A few of us had been ashore from the Costa Rican brig, the _Marshal Serrano_, in search of a diamond which is said to shine at night in the rocks there; but as our search was vain, we thought of raising a few silver dollars on you and your companions, as all our trouble had gone for nothing."

"But how did you reach this island?" I asked, willing, if possible, by conversing with him to gain his better mood.

"I was swept astern of the brig when the studding-sail boom parted, but I clung to it with a death clutch, and the waves, as they rose and fell, soon hid the _Eugenie_ from me; but before that, every time I rose, half blinded, winking and spluttering on the summit of a wave, and saw her sails and spars and cabin windows glittering and looming large in the clear twilight, I sent a bitter malediction after her. However, I soon wearied of that, as it spent my breath, and when that went, the water always closed over my head."

"Had you no fear, Antonio?"

"Fear--of what?" he asked, scornfully.

"Of death--of drowning," said I, earnestly.

"I cannot tell what I felt; at least I had no thought of swimming, for there was no land that I knew of to swim to nearer than Brazil, which was perhaps fifteen hundred miles distant; so as life is dear," (I thought of the lives he had destroyed) "I clung to the spar in the hope of being picked up by some passing ship.

"I slipped off a coat, two waistcoats, and a pair of boots which had belonged to the captain, and every nook of which I had crammed with money, watches, and other valuables of his and Hislop's" (and my mother's parting gift--thought I), "and with another malediction, I let them go to the bottom of the sea, or the bellies of the sharks, I cared not which.

"The red sun had set, and night, with all its stars, came on. The silvered sea was pleasant, warm, and smooth. I felt certain I could float by the spar all night, but my sole fear was for a blue shark, and every thing that sparkled in the water near me, made me draw my knees up to my chin, and my heart leap to my mouth, as I expected to be bitten in two or have all the flesh torn off my legs at a mouthful.

"By my necktie, I lashed my left arm tightly to the spar, so that if weariness came over me, even for a moment, it might not be swept from me, because, if such an accident happened in the night, I might never recover it again. So there were the studding-sail boom and I floating, adrift and alone, in the middle of the South Atlantic.

"I found that we were borne by a current due eastward, and I hoped that it would carry me near some ship that might be running with it toward the Cape.

"Day dawned.

"And there, about a Spanish league off, I saw this island, with the light clouds floating midway between its blue summit and the golden-colored sea. It was so like Teneriffe that I could have sworn I saw the white houses of Santa Cruz, with the ships at anchor in the bay, the dark Valley of the Diamond opening inland, and the Spanish flag flying on the old castle; and so strong is fancy, that _par todos santos!_ I _did_ see them all for a time. But some hours after, I was thrown by the waves with a shock upon the beach, where I lay long--I cannot tell how long--in a stupor, exhausted, worn-out, and all but dead."

"It is a strange story," said I, as the Cubano, who told it in very good Spanish, paused--

"As I came back to the world," he resumed, "savage and bloody thoughts occurred to me! Again I was swinging above the waves at the boom-end; again I saw all your exulting faces line the bulwark of the _Eugenie_; again I was in the sea!

"Then, horrid monsters, red-eyed and covered with shining bristles, were about to devour me. I felt their cold noses and their hot breaths upon my face; and with a yell of terror, I half rose up to find myself lying high and dry above the tide-mark, but among the sea-weed and shingle, blubber, star and jelly-fish of a warm beach, on which the evening sun was shining; and that the bristly monsters of my dreams were a herd of wild boars in council (_consejo_) about devouring me; but they scampered into the woods when slowly and feebly I staggered up, like one after a long debauch.

"My left arm was still lashed to the boom, from which I now released it.

"As I stood erect, shore and cliff, sea and mountain, swam round me, and then I became assailed by thirst and hunger.

"The nearest spring fully relieved one longing, and a wild gourd, which I nearly devoured, satisfied the other. I remained long in thought, considering where I had been cast, and as night came on, and the moon arose, the fear of savages or wild animals made me climb into a tree.

"I had no clothes but what you see; a pair of tattered calziones de marinero (sailor's trousers), and my sash; but, diabolo! did I not utter a shout, when, on examining it, I found that in the folds there were still my knife--my old Albacete knife--and one of the captain's revolvers, with a little tin case, which I had taken from his cabin. I then conceived that it might contain jewellery--_now_ I hoped it was food--a case of sardines at the least!

"It was soldered and water-tight, so I forced the lid with my knife, and found that it contained caps and ammunition for the revolver!

"Thus, without fear, I supplied myself with food, until the arrival of your crew upon the island. I was hidden among some mangroves on the day when the long-boat came into the creek. I knew you all, and my heart swelled with rage as I covered you in succession with this pistol; but as every charge was, perhaps, a day's food to me, and I valued my scanty ammunition more than your wretched lives, I spared them, intending to cut you off otherwise, when any straggler came within reach of my knife; and, as you know, with a large stone, I nearly marred forever the seamanship of the contra-maestre. So that's all my yarn, and what do you think of it?"

"I think that when Heaven has so miraculously spared you, Antonio, your mind should have other thoughts than vengeance now."

The dark Cubano gnashed his white teeth, and laughed bitterly; but now, by his story, the disappearance of the boom from the mountain-top, the thefts from our bread-bag, the alleged pistol reports, and those appearances of a human figure on the bluffs in the moonlight, the wounded goat, and every thing else which had so greatly perplexed us of late, was completely accounted for; and fortunately for me, in the relation of his adventures, the Cubano had talked himself into a state of comparative equanimity.

"Now," said I, rising, "you will permit me to go, Antonio; and if you do, I promise to leave you a dozen of biscuits to-morrow on the rock at the foot of the cliff."

"As a ransom?"

"Yes."

"Well, biscuits are more valuable than golden doubloons here; but might they not be a snare?" he asked, with a savage gleam in his eyes.

"I swear it is not!" I exclaimed, with the greatest earnestness.

"Bueno--very well--you may go. You see how I am armed; so tell the contra-maestre and his men that if they attempt to molest me, they shall share the fate of those who died in the brig. So _vaya_--begone!"

This was all said in Spanish--he had spoken nothing else--and not without a wild dignity of manner that was rather impressive.

I lost no time in creeping or clambering out of his hiding-place.

"Buenos noches," said I, for the sun was now set; and not without fear that Antonio might change his wayward mind, and send a bullet through my back, I scrambled, rolled, ran, and went at times headlong and endlong down the back of the cliff in my anxiety to get beyond his reach, and rejoin my companions, whom I found debating on my disappearance and assembled in solemn conclave near the hut, where Burnet, the ship-cook, was roasting a kid for supper, and where I was received by a shout of welcome.