The Pirate
profession I had undertaken, to be marooned,[10] as the phrase goes, on
one of those little sandy, bushy islets, which are called, in the West
Indies, keys, and which are frequented only by turtle and by sea-fowl.
Many of them are supposed to be haunted(_b_)--some by the demons
worshipped by the old inhabitants--some by Caciques and others, whom the
Spaniards had put to death by torture, to compel them to discover their
hidden treasures, and others by the various spectres in which sailors of
all nations have implicit faith.[11] My place of banishment, called
Coffin-key, about two leagues and a half to the south-east of Bermudas,
was so infamous as the resort of these supernatural inhabitants, that I
believe the wealth of Mexico would not have persuaded the bravest of the
scoundrels who put me ashore there, to have spent an hour on the islet
alone, even in broad daylight; and when they rowed off, they pulled for
the sloop like men that dared not cast their eyes behind them. And there
they left me, to subsist as I might, on a speck of unproductive sand,
surrounded by the boundless Atlantic, and haunted, as they supposed, by
malignant demons."
"And what was the consequence?" said Minna, eagerly.
"I supported life," said the adventurer, "at the expense of such
sea-fowl, aptly called boobies, as were silly enough to let me approach
so near as to knock them down with a stick; and by means of turtle-eggs,
when these complaisant birds became better acquainted with the
mischievous disposition of the human species, and more shy of course of
my advances."
"And the demons of whom you spoke?"--continued Minna.
"I had my secret apprehensions upon their account," said Cleveland: "In
open daylight, or in absolute darkness, I did not greatly apprehend
their approach; but in the misty dawn of the morning, or when evening
was about to fall, I saw, for the first week of my abode on the key,
many a dim and undefined spectre, now resembling a Spaniard, with his
capa wrapped around him, and his huge sombrero, as large as an umbrella,
upon his head,--now a Dutch sailor, with his rough cap and
trunk-hose,--and now an Indian Cacique, with his feathery crown and long
lance of cane."
"Did you not approach and address them?" said Minna.
"I always approached them," replied the seaman; "but,--I grieve to
disappoint your expectations, my fair friend,--whenever I drew near
them, the phantom changed into a bush, or a piece of drift-wood, or a
wreath of mist, or some such cause of deception, until at last I was
taught by experience to cheat myself no longer with such visions, and
continued a solitary inhabitant of Coffin-key, as little alarmed by
visionary terrors, as I ever was in the great cabin of a stout vessel,
with a score of companions around me."
"You have cheated me into listening to a tale of nothing," said Minna;
"but how long did you continue on the island?"
"Four weeks of wretched existence," said Cleveland, "when I was relieved
by the crew of a vessel which came thither a-turtling. Yet my miserable
seclusion was not entirely useless to me; for on that spot of barren
sand I found, or rather forged, the iron mask, which has since been my
chief security against treason, or mutiny of my followers. It was there
I formed the resolution to seem no softer hearted, nor better
instructed--no more humane, and no more scrupulous, than those with whom
fortune had leagued me. I thought over my former story, and saw that
seeming more brave, skilful, and enterprising than others, had gained me
command and respect, and that seeming more gently nurtured, and more
civilized than they, had made them envy and hate me as a being of
another species. I bargained with myself, then, that since I could not
lay aside my superiority of intellect and education, I would do my best
to disguise, and to sink in the rude seaman, all appearance of better
feeling and better accomplishments. I foresaw then what has since
happened, that, under the appearance of daring obduracy, I should
acquire such a habitual command over my followers, that I might use it
for the insurance of discipline, and for relieving the distresses of the
wretches who fell under our power. I saw, in short, that to attain
authority, I must assume the external semblance, at least, of those over
whom it was to be exercised. The tidings of my father's fate, while it
excited me to wrath and to revenge, confirmed the resolution I had
adopted. He also had fallen a victim to his superiority of mind, morals,
and manners, above those whom he commanded. They were wont to call him
the Gentleman; and, unquestionably, they thought he waited some
favourable opportunity to reconcile himself, perhaps at their expense,
to those existing forms of society his habits seemed best to suit with,
and, even therefore, they murdered him. Nature and justice alike called
on me for revenge. I was soon at the head of a new body of the
adventurers, who are so numerous in those islands. I sought not after
those by whom I had been myself marooned, but after the wretches who had
betrayed my father; and on them I took a revenge so severe, that it was
of itself sufficient to stamp me with the character of that inexorable
ferocity which I was desirous to be thought to possess, and which,
perhaps, was gradually creeping on my natural disposition in actual
earnest. My manner, speech, and conduct, seemed so totally changed, that
those who formerly knew me were disposed to ascribe the alteration to my
intercourse with the demons who haunted the sands of Coffin-key; nay,
there were some superstitious enough to believe, that I had actually
formed a league with them."
"I tremble to hear the rest!" said Minna; "did you not become the
monster of courage and cruelty whose character you assumed?"
"If I have escaped being so, it is to you, Minna," replied Cleveland,
"that the wonder must be ascribed. It is true, I have always endeavoured
to distinguish myself rather by acts of adventurous valour, than by
schemes of revenge or of plunder, and that at length I could save lives
by a rude jest, and sometimes, by the excess of the measures which I
myself proposed, could induce those under me to intercede in favour of
prisoners; so that the seeming severity of my character has better
served the cause of humanity, than had I appeared directly devoted to
it."
He ceased, and, as Minna replied not a word, both remained silent for a
little space, when Cleveland again resumed the discourse:--
"You are silent," he said, "Miss Troil, and I have injured myself in
your opinion by the frankness with which I have laid my character before
you. I may truly say that my natural disposition has been controlled,
but not altered, by the untoward circumstances in which I am placed."
"I am uncertain," said Minna, after a moment's consideration, "whether
you had been thus candid, had you not known I should soon see your
comrades, and discover, from their conversation and their manners, what
you would otherwise gladly have concealed."
"You do me injustice, Minna, cruel injustice. From the instant that you
knew me to be a sailor of fortune, an adventurer, a buccanier, or, if
you will have the broad word, a PIRATE, what had you to expect less than
what I have told you?"
"You speak too truly," said Minna--"all this I might have anticipated,
and I know not how I should have expected it otherwise. But it seemed to
me that a war on the cruel and superstitious Spaniards had in it
something ennobling--something that refined the fierce employment to
which you have just now given its true and dreaded name. I thought that
the independent warriors of the Western Ocean, raised up, as it were, to
punish the wrongs of so many murdered and plundered tribes must have
had something of gallant elevation, like that of the Sons of the North,
whose long galleys avenged on so many coasts the oppressions of
degenerate Rome. This I thought, and this I dreamed--I grieve that I am
awakened and undeceived. Yet I blame you not for the erring of my own
fancy.--Farewell; we must now part."
"Say at least," said Cleveland, "that you do not hold me in horror for
having told you the truth."
"I must have time for reflection," said Minna, "time to weigh what you
have said, ere I can fully understand my own feelings. Thus much,
however, I can say even now, that he who pursues the wicked purpose of
plunder, by means of blood and cruelty, and who must veil his remains of
natural remorse under an affectation of superior profligacy, is not, and
cannot be, the lover whom Minna Troil expected to find in Cleveland; and
if she still love him, it must be as a penitent, and not as a hero."
So saying, she extricated herself from his grasp, (for he still
endeavoured to detain her,) making an imperative sign to him to forbear
from following her.--"She is gone," said Cleveland, looking after her;
"wild and fanciful as she is, I expected not this.--She startled not at
the name of my perilous course of life, yet seems totally unprepared for
the evil which must necessarily attend it; and so all the merit I have
gained by my resemblance to a Norse Champion, or King of the Sea, is to
be lost at once, because a gang of pirates do not prove to be a choir of
saints. I would that Rackam, Hawkins, and the rest, had been at the
bottom of the Race of Portland--I would the Pentland Frith had swept
them to hell rather than to Orkney! I will not, however, quit the chase
of this angel for all that these fiends can do. I will--I must to Orkney
before the Udaller makes his voyage thither--our meeting might alarm
even his blunt understanding, although, thank Heaven, in this wild
country, men know the nature of our trade only by hearsay, through our
honest friends the Dutch, who take care never to speak very ill of those
they make money by.--Well, if fortune would but stand my friend with
this beautiful enthusiast, I would pursue her wheel no farther at sea,
but set myself down amongst these rocks, as happy as if they were so
many groves of bananas and palmettoes."
With these, and such thoughts, half rolling in his bosom, half expressed
in indistinct hints and murmurs, the pirate Cleveland returned to the
mansion of Burgh-Westra.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Dr. Edmonston, the ingenious author of a View of the Ancient and
Present State of the Zetland Islands, has placed this part of the
subject in an interesting light. "It is truly painful to witness the
anxiety and distress which the wives of these poor men suffer on the
approach of a storm. Regardless of fatigue, they leave their homes, and
fly to the spot where they expect their husbands to land, or ascend the
summit of a rock, to look out for them on the bosom of the deep. Should
they get the glimpse of a sail, they watch, with trembling solicitude,
its alternate rise and disappearance on the waves; and though often
tranquillized by the safe arrival of the objects of their search, yet it
sometimes is their lot 'to hail the bark that never can return.' Subject
to the influence of a variable climate, and engaged on a sea naturally
tempestuous, with rapid currents, scarcely a season passes over without
the occurrence of some fatal accident or hairbreadth escape."--_View,
&c. of the Zetland Islands_, vol. i. p. 238. Many interesting
particulars respecting the fisheries and agriculture of Zetland, as well
as its antiquities, may be found in the work we have quoted.
[9] Note II.--Promise of Odin.
[10] To _maroon_ a seaman, signified to abandon him on a desolate coast
or island--a piece of cruelty often practised by Pirates and Buccaniers.
[11] An elder brother, now no more, who was educated in the navy, and
had been a midshipman in Rodney's squadron in the West Indies, used to