Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Next Page
OCR
tiie,
PRICE FOUR OENTS.
se © V
V/V ||
ott
VO |
{Drawn and engraved expressly for The Weekly Novelette.]
[Batered according to Act of Congress, in the Clerk’s Office of
the Distriet Court of Massachusetts.]
Wits QWaahy OF Wills Se A3
OUR LADY OF THE OCEAN.
A TALE OF LOVE, STRIFE AND CHIVALRY.
BY NED BUNTLINE.
[concLupED.]
CHAPTER XXII.
DEVASTATION OF THE ISLANDS BY THE SPANIARDS,
Panama’s governor left the pirate-islands, but ere
he had set sail from the harbor, he gave orders to set
fire to all the buildings, and though with a sigh his
men and officers gazed on the magnificent palace and
its gorgeous furniture thus doomed to destruction, his
orders were obeyed. Soon the smoke and flame, which,
like a storm-cloud filled with lightnings and blackness,
wheeled and eddied above, betokened the desolation
that was to follow.
Then with glad cheers and songs of victory the Span-
ish seamen set sail, and soon the fleet, now swelled with
the addition of the pirate prizes, was speeding back
toward Panama, and the desolate islands were left in
their quiet and gloom, all living things having deserted
them.
All, said we? No, not all; for as the last vessel left
the harbor, a pale, haggard man crept out from beneath
a cleft of rocks close by the water-side, and gazed about
him with a wild and terrified look. Ilis face was white
as if the frost of death had bitten it, the small black
eyes which peered out from beneath his gray, shaggy
eyebrows were blood-shot, his thin lips were white as
his cheek, and his thin form shivered and trembled like
a splintered reed in the gale.
LUIGI’S TRIUMPH.
“Gone, gone!” he muttered. “ O, if they have left
my stores untouched! I will see.’ ‘With steps as
fast as his trembling limbs would permit, he hurried up
toward the range of buildings below the palace, and
turned into a little hollow ravine which lay in the hill-
side, near to the spot where they were now crackling in
flames.
He uttered a shout of joy as he saw that a little hut,
built partly in the hill-side, was untouched by the flames,
and he thought that the hand of the spoiler had not
been there. ‘“ Safe—my little store is safe!” he mut-
tered, as he hurried along; “safe, though the villain
Luigi has betrayed and ruined all—I and mipe are
safe 1”
Changed were his notes, however, as he entered the
open door of his hut. A broad flag-stone which lay
close in the shadow of the farther wall, and over which
a miserable pallet had been spread, which now was cast
in a filthy heap'to one side, had been raised. There
was a small vault below, but as the haggard man
knelt at its verge and looked down, he saw that it was
empty.
“« Dost—lost—ruined !” he shrieked, while he tore his
gray hairs by handfuls from his head, and moaned as
if all things dear had, at one fell blow, been sweptfrom
him.
“One thousand three hundred and three pieces of
eight—seven hundred and eleven golden doubloons,
every one full weight—an ounce to every one—a dia-
mond ring, worth a hundred more, for it was set with
seven brilliants, one large as the eye of an eagle, and
six, that, though small, were of the purest water; one
golden cross, set with forty emeralds, to betoken the
forty days of Lent; I remember I snatched it unper-
ceived, om the neck of a Catholic maiden whom we
took in a prize; she was dying though, when I took it.
And-a golden chalice, which I took from a priest’s
chest—and all is lost, lost! O Luigi, traitor villain,
for this, all this, I have toiled and waded through crime,
and now thy treachery has taken all! By the God of
my fathers, I will be revenged! What is life without
money ?
The man, whom the reader will have already recog-
nized as Mordecai, one of the conspirators, thus mutter-
ed and moaned ont his losses, as in the agony of his
[See page 180.)
sordid soul he mourned over the empty grave of his
long-hoarded and ill-gotten treasure. But there was
something in his look when he swore to be avenged,
that spoke his utter desperation, for, as he said, he felt
that life was worthless without its treasures, and now he
registered in his heart a deep and burning oath against
Luigi, the traitor. : .
Half an hour afterward, in an old canoe, which had
been left upon the beach as not even worth destroying,
that strange old man left the island and favored by a
smooth sea and gentle wind, bore away from the main
land.
At the appointed hour Don Benito presented himself
in the audience hall of the palace, before his father.
The governor was not alone, With frowning brow,
and moody countenance, his eye burning with hate and
impatience, the traitor, Luigi, was standing near him,
his hand playing with the jewelled hilt of a long stil-
letto, which hung from his belt, on the opposite side
from his rapier.
“Well, sir, have you come disposed to obey my will,
and do my bidding?” asked the governor, sternly, as
his eye fell upon the frank and fearless countenance of
his son.
“J will obey you, my father, in all things which’ are
right, and not derogatory to my honor.””
“ And who, boy, is to be the judge of this ?””
“My God and my conscience,” proudly answered
the young cavalier.
“Beware, boy, beware, lest you force me to become
your, judge ! You behold that man who stands before
me?
“T see a traitor—a vile thing, who was even unfit to
herd with the men of crime whom he has betrayed.”
The hand of Luigi instinctively clatched his dagger
closer, and he looked as if he would spring upon the
speaker, but a look from the governor calmed , him, as
the latter said :
“ His treason to a band of outlaws, is no crime, but
rather a virtue which merits reward from me and the
king. Thou hast committed a crime, ay, treason, in
aiding the queen of the outlaws to escape, But it is
not too late to redeem thy error, Ihave sworn to de-
liver her to Luigi—sho is one of the rewards of bis
service,” . ae
|
