CHAPTER XLIII.

SANGRE POR SANGRE.

Seated under a banana tree, with my back resting against its trunk, I had read thus far; and lulled by the ceaseless hum of insects among the leaves, and by the equally monotonous chafing of the sea on the beach far down below, I permitted the book, so valuable under the circumstances in which I was placed, to drop from my hands, and I was about to sleep, when the appearance of a distant object on the waters gave me a species of electric shock.

A SHIP!

Under a cloud of canvas, she was running direct for the island from the west, and must have been some hours visible before she caught my eye.

I started up as if I would have met her half way, and then seated myself again, and watched her in a species of ecstasy.

Ah! how my heart leaped at this sight! My emotions were suffocating, and with them there was a nervous fear that it might prove another optical delusion--another Fata Morgana--another ship that would melt away on a nearer approach.

But no! On she came--on and on, with the white foam curling under her sharp bows, a long wake weltering under the counter, and running far astern, every thing set upon her that would draw, from deck to trucks; even her studding-sails were rigged out from the lower, the topsail, and top-gallant yards.

She seemed a very large vessel, ship-rigged, and apparently about fifteen miles distant.

How I dreaded that she might change her course! How I longed for some means of attracting her, ere evening came on. How I panted. I rose, and in an incredibly short space reached the summit of the great bluff which overhangs the sea.

There, under a blazing sun, I exhausted myself by waving my tattered jacket, and by shouting as if her crew could have heard me.

Then I felt my brain almost boiling in the heat, and sat down in the shade of a thicket to fan myself with a large leaf, and lave water from a spring upon my face and head.

Forgetting all about Antonio, or what his views or purposes might now be, I descended to the beach, and stood upon the white stripe of sand, in the hope that some one on board who might be using a telescope would distinguish me; and about two hours after she came in sight, I supposed this was the case, for when the wind veered more upon her quarter, I saw her ensign floating as it was run up to the gaff peak; but my eyes failed to make out its color or nation.

And now her hull became black and all her canvas assumed a purple hue as the sun set; but her sails grew white again when the shadow of the mountain fell across the sea she sailed on.

She was about three miles off, when the wind became light, and ere long almost died away. I felt as if bursting with impatience--with excited hope, with joy to behold her, and with desire for deliverance. All this created a delirium in my head and heart, like intoxication or fever.

During the day, I had seen nothing of Antonio, whom I supposed to be either on board the wreck, or employed with his beloved case of Jamaica rum in some thicket on the other side of the island. Indeed I forgot all about him, and thought only of the approaching ship.

I felt certain that I had been seen; why else would she have shown her colors?

The sunset was followed by a deep and solemn crimson, which overspread the western quarter of the sky and sea. The line of the horizon could no longer be distinguished, so softly did cloud and water blend together in the distance.

In the dark blue vault above, the diamond stars were sparkling. No sound met the ear but the gurgle of a spring from a rock plashing on the pebbled channel, and the ceaseless chafing of the sea upon the lonely shore.

The passing breeze stirred the pendent leaves of the palms, and then died away, for it came in puffs that caused the canvas of the coming ship to shiver aloft; so ere long her courses were brailed up, as they collapsed against the masts.

Slowly and imperceptibly the large and stately craft came on. There was a trim squareness in her hamper aloft, and a clean, flush run in her hull that gave her somewhat the aspect of a man-o'-war; but she was not one, evidently.

Nearer and nearer she came. The look-out ahead evidently saw the bar or coral reef, with the ridge of white foam that boiled at the entrance of the bay, for now a leadsman was busy in the forechains to leeward.

Anon her cloud of canvas, topsails, topgallantsails, and royals, seemed to tower between me and the sky. I could see every sail and rope distinctly, and could count the men upon her deck.

Now her royals were hauled down, and the fore-yards slewed round as her head was thrown in the wind; then the rushing sound of the great chain cable, as it roared hoarsely through the iron hawse-pipe, reached my ear over the ripples within the bay, as she came to anchor outside the reef; and I saw her crew swarming up aloft, and laying out upon the yards to hand her canvas, and in a few minutes she was bared of every thing.

I panted with eagerness for the next movement in the drama of my deliverance, and laughed exultingly when one of her quarter boats was lowered and manned.

For a time, it hung off the larboard quarter, as the great ship swung round at her moorings, and the bow-man held on to the mizzen channels by a boat-hook, while the men kept their oars up-ended.

During this delay, I endured an agony of impatience. At last a smart fellow slid down the falls to the stern sheets, seated himself, seized the tiller rope, and the oars dipped in the water as she was shoved off with her bow pointed to the shore.

They were pulling for a part of the beach where a ledge of rock formed a kind of natural pier within the northern horn of the bay, and I was about to run in that direction, when the voice of Antonio, rendered husky by his recent potations, reached me.

"Hola! Stop, or it may be the worse for you," said he.

I turned, and saw him start from behind some large boulders which lay on the beach to my right. There he had evidently been lurking and observing the ship's approach; and now he stood, with bare knife in hand, between me and the coming boat.

The pile of weedy boulders concealed us both at that moment from the ship, and from those in her boat; and by the light of the moon, I could read the fell intention of Antonio in his dark and deep-set eye.

In tangled masses, his black hair fell over a low and narrow brow, and met the equally black whiskers that mingled with the beard which grew like a furze-bush over his chin and cheeks. Naked to the waist, he resembled in every way a brawny savage. Inflamed by alcohol, the expression of his eye was terrible, and he seemed to tremble with the ferocity of his emotions, as he grasped his knife, with the thumb of his right hand placed firmly over the pommel.

The moonlight shone brightly on the beach; so whatever he meant to do, he resolved should be done behind the screen formed by the boulders among which he had been concealed.

I had still the sword which had been taken from the wreck, and I drew it with the resolution of defending my life to the last. Antonio started on beholding me armed so unexpectedly.

"You see the boat which is making for the shore?" said he.

"I do, and am on my way to meet it; so stand aside, Cubano," I replied, firmly.

"And you will tell her crew of all that happened in the _Eugenie_, and cry _sangre por sangre_!" said he, grinding his teeth.

"That is as may be," said I, without consideration.

Then uttering a howl like a wild animal, he rushed upon me with his knife uplifted; but quite undaunted I met him half-way, and thrust the sword under his right arm-pit. Springing back, before the great lumbering ruffian could renew the attack, I gave him another dangerous wound in the breast, which tumbled him down on his face; and without looking to see whether or not he moved again, I ran along the moonlit beach, and reached the boat, which had just sheered alongside the ledge of rock already mentioned.