CHAPTER XLIV.

THE SAN ILDEFONSO.

The bowman held the boat's-head to the shore by the hook, which he grasped with his left hand, while stretching out his right to me. 'Twas old Tom Lambourne; there was no mistaking that quaint and tattooed visage of his!

"Hilloah, Master Rodney, here we are again, come back for you, after all;" he exclaimed, joyfully.

"Tom, Tom!" I gasped, while seizing his hard brown hand, and leaping without invitation, into the boat, where my hands were immediately grasped by Hislop, who had been steering. "Oh, Hislop, Marc Hislop!" I added, in a breathless voice, and nearly sank down overcome by emotion.

"You didn't think _I_ would leave you there, my boy, if I could help it?" said he. "Thank heaven, we have come in time. I have counted every day, every hour, aye, every moment, and have scarcely ever slept for thinking of you, and the wretched condition in which you were left."

I could not reply, but, completely overcome by the revulsion of feeling, seated myself in the stern-sheets, and wept.

"What is this in your hand?" said Hislop, with astonishment; "a sword, and blood on it too! Where did it,--where did this come from?"

"Antonio,"--I began.

"The villanous Cubano?"

"Yes," my voice sank into a whisper, I was so weak.

"What of him?--where is he?"

"He tried to kill me when he saw the boat approaching, and--and--"

"What then?"

"I ran him through the body."

"But where is he now?" continued Hislop. "Our work in rescuing you will be but half done if we leave him unhanged."

"He is lying wounded, dying, perhaps, on the beach. Oh, Hislop, it is horrible! For pity's sake, for heaven's sake, go some of you--behind those rocks," I added, incoherently, for in my joy at escaping, I felt it possible even to compassionate and forgive Antonio.

"Remain here," said Hislop, and leaping ashore, followed by Tom Lambourne, he went at once to the place I indicated.

I now looked at the boat's crew, eight in number and to my surprise found they were all Spaniards; bearded, mustachioed, and armed with sheath-knives in their sashes; some wore red nets on their heads, others red night-caps, and they might all have passed--especially those with earrings--for blood relations of the Cubano.

I had scarcely made this unpleasant discovery when Hislop and Lambourne appeared, half supporting and half dragging Antonio toward the boat, into the bow of which they thrust him with very little ceremony; and there he lay in a heap, as it were, with his eyes closed and his bare and hairy chest covered with blood and sand.

His right hand still clenched his Albacete* knife, the weapon with which he had committed so many crimes; so Hislop tore it from him, and cast it into the sea.

* Albacete is a town of Murcia, where the cutlers manufacture a great number of sheath-knives.

He moaned heavily, and the Spanish oarsmen looked at each other, and then at me, with eyes the reverse of friendly in expression; but now Hislop seated himself, assumed the tiller-lines, and said, in their own language,--

"Shove off for the ship, marineros. We must have the wounds of this picaro looked to at once; so give way with a will."

The boat's head fell round, her stern lay to the beach of that detested island of Alphonso, and the sturdy _Espanoles_, with their bare feet planted firmly on the stretchers, bent their backs at every stroke, and made the boat fly through the moon-lit bay, toward the ship, which lay more than a mile distant outside the coral reef.

In a few minutes I related to Hislop, how my time had been spent since his departure, and how I had feared that the desperate sequel of to-night would assuredly ensue when Antonio found a ship off the island.

"He will dangle from the yard-arm now, if ever a rascally pirate swung there!" said Hislop, through his clenched teeth.

After my loneliness on the island, I cannot describe how pleasant his voice--the voice of a valued and trusted friend--sounded in my ear!

He told me that the boat's crew soon repented of their selfishness and folly in leaving the island, and next day would have returned, but they had lost all idea of its bearings, and being without compass or chart, were compelled to run in what they believed to be the direction of Tristan da Cunha.

A sea half swamped the boat, and washing away the tarpaulin which covered the bread-bags, soaked and destroyed their contents; yet, having no other food, they were compelled to eat these salt-sodden biscuits, and thus their thirst became excited to agony, as they were under a vertical sun, and their supply of fresh water was rapidly consumed.

For six days and nights they endured unspeakable misery; and just when they were sucking the last putrid drops from the barrel-staves, a large vessel hove in sight, running due west, under a cloud of canvas. She saw their signal, bore down, and picked them up.

She proved to be the _San Ildefonso_, a Spanish merchant-ship of sixteen hundred tons, bound from Java to Cadiz, with a mixed crew of Spaniards and Lascars, and with a few cabin passengers; in all about sixty souls.

Her skipper, the Captain José Estremera was very unwilling to add to the number of his crew, lest provisions should run short, and flatly refused at first to haul up for the island, and take me off.

For two days he resisted all the entreaties of Hislop and others, till the former found one ally in a Portuguese friar, who was returning from his mission in Java, and another in a wealthy Dutch passenger.

Fra Anselmo held the terrors of Pandemonium before the capitano, and the Dutch planter held a handful of guilders, so the yards were trimmed anew, the charts were consulted carefully, and in two days more the look-out man in the fore-cross-trees of the _San Ildefonso_ sighted the great mountain of the island.

Hislop had many doubts whether he would find me alive, fearing that I might perish of hunger, of despair, or by the hand of the Cubano.

Just as he concluded his narrative, I found myself under the towering side of the Spanish merchant-ship.

She had a long flush deck: was pierced for and carried twelve brass nine-pounders, and had top-gallant bulwarks aft. Over these and along her side was a row of faces, surveying us in the moonlight with expressions of wonder and interest.

I sprang up the rope-ladder, and on reaching the deck my hands were caught and shaken by Ned Carlton, old Probart, Burnet the cook, Boy Bill, and others of our crew, who all expressed in various fashions, but chiefly by swearing at themselves, their contrition for having so selfishly abandoned me; but that was all over now, and I desired them to forget it.

Antonio was next hoisted on board. His appearance and his wounds excited great astonishment; and now, surrounded by a crowd of dark and grim-looking Spanish seamen, and darker leathery-visaged Lascars, we were conducted aft to the quarter-deck, where Captain José Estremera awaited us, together with a number of passengers, whose curiosity was excited by the whole affair.