The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California
bless the ship with the presence within her bulwarks of your life
companion, let's have her here."
Benito shook the generous foreigner's hand cordially, ran up the
companionway and vanished for a short moment, after which he returned,
preceding Dolores. She had even sooner and more completely than her
young mate recovered from the privations of the desert, and grief at
the loss of her only parent. Her beauty was exhilarating, and Gladsden
was really enchanted at her salutation, so fraught with modesty and
grace. Her soft, harmonious voice fluttered faintly in her answer to
his welcoming address, but she was soon encouraged to the top of her
heart, and even laughed at having been fearful up to then.
To think they were in some sort old friends; that this indolent captain
had been on the trail of her abductor, and had besides visited with
condign punishment the assassin of her father. It was as good as her
brightest dreams.
CHAPTER XI.
THE TWO CAPTAINS OF THE "GOLETA."
Whilst señora Bustamente was formally taking some refreshment, Gladsden
summoned Ignacio.
"Lieutenant," said he, sternly, "it is a honour for me to have Madam
Vázquez, the bride of Benito Vázquez, the pearl diver, to present to
you."
Ignacio bowed, and darted from his widely distended eyes an enormous
show of admiration at the young Mexican.
"The famous pearl fisher," murmured he; "the take will be rare and
splendid now."
"This lady," continued the master, "is our passenger, you are
answerable for her being treated with the utmost deference, and the
greatest attention by all the crew. We'll fashion a cabin for her
hereabouts. All the men are forbidden to enter here under any pretence
whatever. Do'ye hear, Master Ignacio?"
"Yes."
"Then what the mischief are you staring for?"
"Ha, Señora Vázquez?" he repeated. "Surely I behold with admiration
dazed eyes the incomparable daughter of the martial hacendero, don José
de Miranda."
"Eh! How now, what do you know of the lady?"
"Only that she was the chosen bride of his Excellency, don Aníbal
Cristobal."
"Eh? Why, of course!"
"And that illustrious scoundrel," went on the late lieutenant of
banditti, with a refreshing air of morality, "after having had the
poor don tracked to his death by the venomous Apache, to whom I owe my
brother's loss--one to him! A thousand devils pull at him--the captain
not my lamented Pepillo--after all that show of hatred to him who took
the lady out of his clutches, don Aníbal will not allow the double
removal unimpeded, I'll wager you a thousand ounces against one poor,
old, worn dollar, of the señorita and his dear _Burlonilla_."
"Indeed! We'll see about that."
The speaker marked a curious mixture of fear and doubt flit across the
visage of Ignacio.
Benito, seeing that he was only in the way of his young wife's settling
down in her new home, and having some neglected preparations to make
ashore, proposed a hasty return thither.
The captain all the less reluctantly coincided with his expressed
intention, as he had a confidential message to transmit to the British
vice-consul--a young Jewish gentleman on whom he believed he could rely
in such an emergency as impended.
In Benito's absence, captain Gladsden took further precautions.
Disliking a budding smile on the phiz of Ignacio, he ordered him below,
placing Bristol Jem at the head of affairs in his stead, and charged
the carpenter to hurry on his woodwork. The rest of the time was given
up to completing the readiness to start.
Going on 3 p.m. the Englishman was walking the deck under an umbrella,
when he perceived a boat pushing off from the wharf. It could not be
Benito, in this huge shallow punt, impelled by eight oars, in the bow
of which six armed men in uniform were standing, while at the stern
were seated two persons in gay array.
One was a stout dame, extravagantly caparisoned; the other, a tall
man in almost as brilliant and absurd an attire. The latter was not
altogether unfamiliar to the captain, and he smiled in anticipation of
the affair to be communicated.
Whilst the heavily laden embarkation bore down upon the cutter with a
leisure which was insulting, Gladsden ordered his ensign to be dipped
three times. Immediately he had the satisfaction of perceiving the flag
of the British consul execute the same movement. Benito had, therefore,
delivered his message, to which this courtesy was an acknowledgment.
Gladsden went below, and approaching the bulkhead, behind which doña
Dolores was ensconced, whispered to her:
"Lady! I have reason to suppose that a boat is coming hither with
persons on board whose intention is to seize on you and take you
to land in the absence of your husband. Now, you need not worry
yourself. Don't show any tokens of being here. I have answered for your
protection to don Benito, and I know quite how to take care of you, as
well as my craft, against all the desperadoes in the Intendencia of all
Sonora."
"Oh, do so, sir!" returned the young lady, a prey to deep emotion,
spite of the Englishman's confident and jesting accent, "And we shall
bless you! Out of the little window I, too, have espied the skiff
coming; and I have recognised my aunt and the pretender to my hand. I
would rather die than fall into their hands! Oh, why--oh, why is not
Benito here?"
"Don't be under any uneasiness," reiterated the other; "I shall keep my
pledge to your husband. Only, I say again, keep _perdue_, and do not
reveal your presence by any noise."
"I promise to obey you, sir Captain. You are a really good man! Heaven
will benefit you for the protection you accord me. I shall go on
praying for you and myself!"
"Very well; so pluck up, Señorita, and soon the fun will be over!"
He remounted to the deck. He glanced over the bay, and went to the stem
with his marine glass, looking over the oncoming "scow" contemptuously
to view the shore near the consul's habitation. A longboat, manned by
twelve oarsmen, and carrying the English flag at the stern, was seen to
quit the pier and steer for the _Burlonilla_, making good time.
The port was "getting lively."
Though things were going on nicely enough, Gladsden did not mean to
be taken unawares, and, not to be blamed for neglecting to take any
precaution, he had a cutlass and a brace of boarding pistols laid
handily on the sliding cover of the companionway. In those waters one
never knows how matters may turn out, and, to prevent the turning out
being unpleasant, a man is easiest when thoroughly on his guard.
Though the English representative's boat had left the shore some time
after the native one, it was not slow in overhauling it, outstripping
it without deigning to hail it or otherwise notice it, and ran
alongside the _Little Joker_ on the seaward side, while the other boat
was rather far away.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Lyons," said Gladsden, receiving the
deputy-consul, warmly.
"Yes, here I am, Captain. You can do anything you like with me, you
know. Only, as your messenger was in a hurry to be off, I am very
little informed upon passing matters, and I may be able to act better
in your interest if you acquaint me how things stand and move."
Gladsden briefly told the story.
"Is that all!" exclaimed deputy-consul Lyons, laughing finely, as Jews
do. "Don't you be alarmed, but let me deal with this fellow. The friend
of don Stefano must be a suspicious character, and that he is the chief
of the in-country night marchers, and also the doer of little piracies
with this same brigantine does not, therefore, startle me. But your
visitors are hailing you. You might receive them with that bulldog
sweetness of demeanour which characterise us British," he went on,
smiling shyly. "Before all, put away those weapons, quite useless. The
affair will finish with more of a display of brass than steel or lead."
"I will hope so, though it's a thing of indifference," replied the
master of the _Little Joker_. "Anyway, I rely on you."
"That's the best."
So the cabin boy removed the weapons, while his captain, accompanied by
the British sub-consul, strode to the gangway thrown open in the low
waist, arriving just in time to offer his hand to the lady passenger
of the shallop. Behind her the drolly accoutred sham Chilian commodore
scrambled aboard.
Doña Josefa de Miranda was of elephantine form, with her hair, neck,
ears, and arms literally laden with gems, gold eagles, and Mexican
coins, pierced and strung in the shape of collars and bracelets. A
thousand dollar China crape shawl showed all its florid pattern in
embroidery, spread on her broad shoulder. A figured muslin dress, much
too short, was caught in at what she probably flattered herself was a
waist, by a sash sprinkled with precious stones. A profusion of costly
rings shone on her gloved hands. It was manifest that don José de
Miranda in his flight had left some valuables which his kinswoman had
forestalled the executors in securing.
Nothing could be more repulsive in its uncomeliness than the swarthy
lineaments of this corpulent being, whose carping physiognomy and small
glistening coffee coloured eyes wore an expression of indescribable
spitefulness.
Close to her escort, captain Gladsden undoubtedly recognised the
scarred hook nose, hatchet face, and lank figure of his gambling
opponent. It was the same grotesque uniform which had been donned to
astonish the natives at the supper table of don Stefano.
When this precious pair came in upon the deck of the _Little Joker_,
the armed men attempted to follow. But Mr. Holdfast--whose enforced
stay in the fort, penniless, scornfully used by the Guaymasians, had
filled him with terrible detestation of all Mexicans in general, and
Western ones in particular--gleefully obeyed his orders by bidding
them keep their distance. At once the corporal seemed indisposed to
bow to this injunction, and seized the Turk's head at the end of the
rope guard of the gangplank, thus railed to assist the lady, the first
officer, without losing an atom of his habitual coolness, shoved the
skiff head off so roughly with his foot as to make the soldier lose his
balance and fall between the two gunnels into the water. This, to the
laughter of the seamen, who cherish an animosity towards soldiers, and,
furthermore, against the armed police, always seeking an excuse to be
manifested. Luckily, the soldier had kept his hold of the main ropes,
and hung long enough to be lifted up into the boat to the disapproval,
if a certain splash of a tail in the water not remote, signified
anything, of a shark which had immediately prepared to sup on him
instead of the cook's waste.
Meanwhile, without deigning to attach the least interest to this
suggestive episode, the massive dame, giving the new master of the
brigantine a lofty look, used her most cutting tone to demand,
haughtily, if she were addressing the commander of the bark.
"Yes, madam," replied Gladsden, bowing stiffly, "for which recent
coming into possession I am happy, because it procures me the honour of
receiving on my deck as weighty a personage as your ladyship appears to
be. To whom have I the favour of speaking?"
The proud woman announced herself, sonorously, as "Doña Maria Josefa
Dolores Miranda y Pedrosa y Saltabadil de la Cruz de Carbaneillo y
Merlusa." The hearer bowed deeply at each bead on the string, darting a
look aslant as if he feared the little brigantine was rather top-heavy
with all these names. Then she pointed to her companion, who had been
eyeing the ship's new crew with an annoyed face which was diverting
enough to anyone in the secret of his interest, like an exhibition of a
curious wild beast.
"This is--for you need save yourself the trouble to name an old
acquaintance--Don Aníbal Cristobal de Luna y Pizarro Almagro de