Rafael
J. H. Ingraham

CHAPTER I. THE ARMED SCHOONER. 
CHAPTER II. 
CHAPTER III. THE DISAPPEARANCE. 
CHAPTER IV. THE LAST SHOT. 
CHAPTER V. 
CHAPTER VI. THE CONSPIRACY. 
CHAPTER VII. THE VISIT. 
CHAPTER VIII. THE LEAPER. 
CHAPTER IX. THE PRISONER. 
CHAPTER X. THE WHEEL. 
CONCLUSION. 


RAFAEL:
OR,
THE TWICE CONDEMNED.
A Tale of Ken West.

CHAPTER I. THE ARMED SCHOONER. 
It was towards the close of a summery afternoon in October, 1840, that the U. S. 
schooner of war, Dolphin, was riding at anchor in the port of Key-West. Around 
her were several ships, brigs and schooners which a gale of the preceding night 
had driven in for shelter. One of them was the packet ship on which I had taken 
passage sixteen days before at New York for New Orleans; and as she had lost her 
fore-topmast and received some other injuries which it would take some days to 
repair, I accepted the invitation of the lieutenant commanding the armed 
schooner to take a three days cruise with him across the channel to Cuba.
I had therefore dined with him on the day in which my story opens, and was now 
his guest. We were seated upon the taffrail enjoying a cigar and watching in 
contemplative silence the golden sunset, which at that season in that latitude 
is ever gorgeous, when a midshipman who was idly lolling over the quarter gazing 
seaward, turned to the commander and said,
`I have had my eye on that ship standin' in, sir, for some time. She acts 
queer!'
We followed the direction of his gaze and observed about six miles out a large 
ship under press of sail standing for the post. She had everything set she could 
carry,studdenstails a-wing and sky-sails aloft. While we were looking at her she 
broached to, and seemed about to wear, and then filled away again and stood on. 
As the wind was on her quarter, her lee studden-sails were constantly flapping 
or else set back, while her starboard sails kept full.
`That is the way she has been rearing and hauling, noddin' and bobbin' this ten 
minutes, sir,' said the reefer, nodding and bobbing his own head by way of 
illustration.
The commander took his glass and placed it to his eye. For fall a minute he 
looked at her steadily, and then said,
`That fellow is making for harbor with his best foot foremost; and the way he 
works his vessel I should think he was ignorant of the way to come in, and was 
feeling it as he went, yet too much in a hurry to spare an inch of his canvass. 
He is, too, running into danger, if he did but know it if he keeps that course. 
Why in the deuce dont the fellow take in his larboard and studden-sails? There 
is smoke and a flash! Hark, a gun!
`A signal for a pilot, I expect, sir,' answered the middy.
`They don't call pilots that way here, Fred,' responded the commander to the lad 
with a smile. `Besides there is one standing out after her and is now within two 
miles of her! There goes another gun!'
`And the pilot boat has tacked and putting back to harbor!' I said seeing with 
surprise this movement; for I held a glass in my hand, by aid of which I could 
see clearly both the boat and the ship; the latter being now about five miles 
off.
`So she has and is scudding with a free sheet right before the wind, homeward. '
`And there goes another gun, sir,' exclaimed the middy.
`Yes, and if another is fired, they are minute-guns. Stand by to slip the cable 
and make sail; for if she fires again, I shall run out and see what is the 
matter.'
`There she yaws again nearly broadside too, sir,' said the next officer in 
command, a passed midshipman, who came up from below on hearing the first gun 
fired.
`And now I can see her colors—American—union down in her rigging!' exclaimed the 
commander.
`And there is a fourth gun,' cried the middy looking at his captain to catch his 
eye, and in an attitude of one ready to spring forward to obey the expected 
order.
`They are minute guns! Get the schooner under her canvass at once, Mr Ferris,' 
called the lieutenant in command to the passed midshipman. Slip the cable! Loose 
the foretopsail and set her jibs. Some of you aft here to the main halyards. 
Lively men, lively!'
While he was giving his various orders in an animated tone, I was engaged in 
looking at the ship with my glass, when I became all at once interested in what 
appeared to be a new and unusual set of sails unfolding themselves to view over 
her stern. But gradually I saw them develope themselves into the outlines of a 
gib, fore-sail, top-sail, top-gallant-sail; then slowly appeared a 
main-gaft-top-sail, and the proportions of a huge main-sail the next instant 
followed; and, passing out of range of the ship, astern of, and behind which it 
had hitherto hidden, stood visibly forth the rakish hull and top-hamper of a 
`long, low, black schooner!'
My exclamation of surprise drew the young commander to my side.
`What is it?'
`A vessel in chace, I believe!'
`So there is—a rascally pirate or may I never see Boston!' he exclaimed as soon 
as he levelled his glass! Now my boys stir yourselves!' Uncle Sam expects every 
man and boy to help catch that black hawk and pick his feathers. It is the very 
cruiser I have heard of, as skulking about Cape Antonia three weeks ago, and 
which I have wished to fall in with. She is not half a mile astern of the ship, 
and unless we are lively she will board her right before our nose. Yes—that 
fellow is no better than he should be,' added the lieutenant taking a long and 
close survey of the vessel through his glass. She is a regular buccaneer, and if 
her skipper will only wait outside there until I can come up within hail of him, 
I will make him a present of my next twelve month's pay. But I fear that as soon 
as he discovers that there is one of brother Jonathan's bull dogs in the harbor 
and we are in motion he will cut and run. It is strange we did not discover him. 
But the rascal kept purposely astern, and the ship I have now no doubt, yawed as 
she did to give us a chance of looking at her enemy and coming to help her.'
We were now underweigh, having slipped the cable and floated it by a buoy so 
that we should know where to find it again when we returned to port. The moment 
we had any headway on the vessel, a gun was fired forward in answer to the 
signals. The wind was blowing from the south a little westerly, and about a six 
knot breeze; but by laying our course strait out of the harbor on a bowline, we 
could fetch the ship without tacking. The ship kept firing at intervals of a 
minute, her signals of distress, that produced by their solemn and irregular 
sound associations in my mind similar to those created by the knoll of the 
funeral bell. The ship seemed to me to be an animated creature, and the signal 
cannon, her voice, appealing to man for succor. Her motions, her irregular 
progress, were like life, and like living actions under the influence of terror. 
I felt a sympathy for her as I should have done for a human being. The black 
schooner too, crouching low upon the waves seemed to be a living animal—some 
subtle beast of prey hunting its victim. And to any one witnessing such a scene 
as this—witnessing the helpless efforts of the one to escape and the sullen 
advances of the other to make captive; these as sociations would irreverently 
press upon the mind.
The war-schooner upon whose deck we stood, was now gliding swiftly towards the 
scene of peril. She carried eight eighteens besides a heavy forty two pounder 
upon the forecastle. The decks were cleared for action as soon as we had got 
sail on her; ports thrown open; the tompions removed from the muzzles; 
cartridges passed up from the magazine; balls, cannister, and grape, piled near 
each gun upon deck; and forward, the huge globes of iron, which were to fill the 
cavernous jaws of the forty-two, were placed in sockets by the brush.
In the meanwhile the ship was crowding on all sail, and was four miles only out; 
and she was now making better speed, inasmuch, as soon as she heard our 
answering gun, she had taken in her studdensails, which had been retarding her 
progress instead of helping her flight.
The schooner, was however close upon her and had began to fire at her at 
intervals, no doubt resolved to do her an injury if she could not capture her.
`That fellow has kept from firing upon her before, lest he should wake us up:' 
said the lieutenant who was pacing up and down the quarter deck in fine spirits; 
`but now that she has been firing powder for help, he has thought it folly to 
keep silence. That he wont keep the course he is steering now long after he 
discovers to his satisfaction who we are, you may be assured. There goes the 
ship's mizzen royal carried away by a shot. The fellow is a good gunner; but let 
me bring the Dolphin within half a mile of him, and I will show him how to play 
at billiards and pocket the ball! Ah, see that!'
The schooner after firing the last mischievous gun suddenly luffed up into the 
wind, close-hauled every sheet, showed a green flag and stood seaward under a 
press of sail.
`Was I not right!' cried my friend, the commander, rubbing his hands with great 
glee, his fine dark eyes, sparkling like stars, and his face glowing with hope 
and confidence.
`He is running away, sir,' said the middy, with a look of chagrin, `and I am 
afraid we shant catch him! These chaps have such long legs!'
`And so has the Dolphin long fins! We shall come along side of that rogue, 
confound him, before morning, and you shall have the pleasure Fred of playing 
commodore in her cabin, and take her into port.'
`If I thought so, I should feel better, but I am afraid he'll skulk away! See 
sir, how he runs! From here, without a glass, I can see the white bone he 
carries in his teeth, and the foaming wake he makes after.'
`Yes he sails like a bird on the wing. He has found out who we are, for the 
smoke of the ships firing I have no doubt kept him from making us out 
distinctly, especially as there were so many craft anchored about us with which 
we were blended. But as soon, you saw, as we began to get down the harbor in 
full sight he put about and run for it.'
`There goes a gun from the ship, and by the report it was shotted,' said the 
officer of the deck coming aft. `They are firing at the schooner now she is 
frightened off.'
`Yes. That is the way with these merchant-men,' answered Wordley, the young 
captain, with a smile. `Her signal guns were not shotted, and so I supposed he 
had no balls on board. But he was afraid to strike, and like a cowardly school 
boy, contented himself with giving loud calls for help; and then as soon as he 
leaves him, driven away by a more fearful antagonist, he throws stones at his 
back. But never mind, the courage or cowardice of the merchantman has nothing to 
do with the matter I have in hand. Catch that fellow I will before another 
twenty-four hours are passed over my head.'
In about fifteen minutes we came so near the chase as to speak her; but as 
Wordley would not delay he merely hailed as he passed after this manner:
`Chased in?'
`Yes, sir.'
`A pirate?'
`No doubt of it, sir. He hove in sight from the south at ten, and has chased me 
ever since.'
`Do you know how many guns and the weight of metal he carries?'
`He has a forty-two on a pivot mid-ships, six side guns and about fifty men.'
`Very good.'
The next moment we were beyond hearing and merrily dashing on after this 
sea-wolf.
CHAPTER II. 
The schooner seeing us pass the merchant vessel and stand out after her, became 
satisfied that we not only understood her character but were in pursuit; she, 
therefore, as soon as she was satisfied with our intentions braced up sharp and 
began to beat dead to windward. She already had had the advantage of us in the 
wind, being, when we got outside, full a half mile to windward and at least 
three and a half from us ahead.
`If he thinks he can eat his way into the wind and so get clear of us in that 
way he is mistaken,' said Wordley, as he took his spy-glass from his eye after 
observing the movement. `He finds that we can sail with him on a bowline, for he 
has not gained a cable's length since we left the merchantman and now he is 
going to see what he can do by making a hole with the end of his jib-boom in the 
wind's eye! He knew well enough we should have over-hauled him before midnight 
on this tack! I will keep on till I get him abeam which will be a couple of 
miles further, and then see what the saucy Dolphin will do!'
`He lays very close to the wind,' I remarked to Wordley, as I took the bearings 
by the binnacle compass!'
`Yes, full five points near!' he answered glancing at the compass. `He has 
everything set as flat as the palm of your hand! He looks as if he was going 
right into the wind, for see his green flag that flies at the peak! it blows out 
strait over the stern!'
`How far is he from us now in a strait line?' I asked.
`About three miles or perhaps two and three quarters.'
`Within reach of your shot?'
`No—not fired to windward!'
`Then his might reach you here?'
`Yes, if he carried heavy enough metal. But he seems to be more inclined to run 
away than to fight.'
`He no doubt knows your superior force in men and guns.'
`Yes, he knows very well who I am. These fellows are well acquainted with all 
armed vessels in these seas, and keep knowledge of their movements; but I think 
he had lost his reckoning about mine when he run so boldly into port; doubtless 
he thought I was on the south side of the island where I was last week!'
`Have you any idea who he is?' I asked, as we went bowling along, close hauled, 
in the course we had laid from first leaving our anchorage, a due W. S. W. one, 
the chase in the meanwhile was standing on the starboard tack, right in the 
teeth of the wind. If he had kept on his original course we should now have been 
nearly in his wake and about a league astern of him; but his tacking had changed 
our relative positions and running on opposite sides of a triangle, we 
converging towards, and he diverging from,their point of meeting, there was a 
place before us when we should be abeam or opposite one another, and only a mile 
apart.
`When we get him in this position I shall open upon him as he passes on the tack 
he is on,' said Wordley going forward to the forty-two pounder which was all 
prepared for firing, the captain of the gun standing by with a lighted fuse. `We 
shall be in this position but a minute or two, and I must then do what I can to 
cripple him. And to be sure of my aim I shall back the fore-topsail, and so fire 
as steadily from my deck as from a stationary battery! '
Taking his place upon the gun, Wordley now closely watched the schooner, the two 
vessels rapidly approximating to that point in their diverse courses, as we 
sailed on opposite tacks, which would bring us within a mile of each other for 
an instant, and then, each passing on, would widen their distance unless we 
tacked and stood on the course she was sailing, and so keep abeam of her.
`She is swinging round her forecastle gun,' said Wordley. `She means to give us 
a shot, too, as we pass!'
In about five minutes more we came to the position in which we should be nighest 
to each other. Wordley sprang from the gun and gave the order to back the 
topsail. He then sighted the piece with his eye along the huge tube of hollow 
iron, and taking the fuse from the gunner, stood a moment, till the schooner's 
headway was deadened and she became stationary, which he ascertained by throwing 
a cork over the side.
I had taken his glass and placed it to my eye to watch the effect of the shot. I 
had a full view of the schooner. I could see upon her quarter-deck a figure 
moving about with animation, whom I had no doubt was the captain. The bulwarks 
and hammock-nettings were high, so that I could overlook only the caps of the 
men, but these were very numerous, and were mostly red or blue caps, with very 
few tarpaulins among them. I saw two fellows going up the fore-rigging whose 
costume was that of the Spanish buccaneer. Before their long gun the bulwark had 
been let down inside, giving it a free range in the direction of our vessel. I 
could get glimpses of the men hovering about it, and every sign of an inteation 
to fire upon us was as apparent as our own preparations to fire upon him. The 
appearance of the schooner was very picturesque. Her immense breadth of canvass 
compared with the small size of her hull, as if the wings of a swan had been 
given to a black-bird. All her sails, though large, were gracefully cut and 
symmetrical in their proportions. Although her tonnage must have been under 
ninety, yet she carried a main-sail heavier than ours, and her foretopsail was 
very much squarer. She moved along dark and close to the water, with her long 
flying-jib-boom projecting far beyond her bows and almost in a line level with 
the sea, while her masts of great length raked aft so that the main truck 
overhung the taffrail. She lay upon the water as straight as an arrow, her sharp 
bows shooting far out and tapering gradually away into the bowsprit. Low, sharp, 
rakish, and taunt, with a cloud of canvass above her decks.
She sailed on, dashing aside the spray from her bows and leaving a long frothy 
wake astern that looked like a snow path upon the blue sea.
The sun was just setting as we came abeam of one another, and the stranger 
schooner lay for an instant directly within the circle of his disc, like a ship 
stamped upon a medal of gold.
I turned away my eye from the splender of the sight, and at the instant, Wordley 
cried with animation,
`Right in the sun's eye! Fire!' He had hardly got the words out of his lips when 
he applied the fuse himself to the piece and discharged it. At the same instant 
the buccaneer also fired. His shot passed with a loud roar between our masts, 
and we heard it dash up the spray to leeward, while the report of our own gun, 
was yet ringing in our ears. Wordley threw down the fuse to seize his glass and 
spring upon the windlass out of reach of the smoke which was borne aft by the 
wind.
`My shot has done good service!' he exclaimed. `It has gone right into her 
main-chains, and through and through her, I verily believe! See she falls off as 
if there was confusion on board! I should'nt be surprised if I had wounded her 
mainmast, for so far as I can judge, the shot must have struck it between decks. 
If I had only taken her three feet below, she would have had work for her pumps. 
As it is, I must have done her great mischief. Fill away again, Mr Ferris! I 
will stand on till she gets a little headway on her and then tack.'
We closely watched the schooner, Wordley expecting each moment, as he said, to 
see her main-mast go by the board; but we were disappointed. The vessel stood 
steadily on as before, with every thing drawing, and laying as close to the wind 
as possible. We kept our course on the larboard tack, about five minutes longer, 
and then tacked and stood after her. We soon discovered that we could lay quite 
as near to the wind as the chase, and with great nicety in the triming of every 
sail, and a careful watch of the helm, we were enabled to come up half a point 
nigher, that is within about five and a half points, the schooner laying within 
six.
`This is a decided advantage, and will by and by bring us up with her,' said 
Ferris turning to me.' She will have to tack soon, as she can't run on that leg 
more than a mile before she will be in shoal water; if we tack when she does, we 
shall by and by work up to her; and at any rate get her within range of another 
gun.'
`She must be within range now!'
`Yes—but her stern presents too small a mark at this distance; it dont look 
bigger than a buoy,' said Wordley. `We will by and by get her broadside to. If 
we could hit her as she is we could rake her, and do the business for her!'
The schooner after running in towards the land on the tack about ten minutes 
longer, put about and stood away on the other tack. We kept on, passed each 
other, and a second time exchanged shots, but this time without effect, both 
vessels being in motion, although we were nigher to each other then when we 
fired first. Our ball passed several feet astern of the chase, while hers of the 
same weight of metal, struck the water about a hundred feet from our larboard 
quarter, and taking an oblique direction,threw the spray over our decks in its 
passage close under the counter. For a moment we believed that the rudder must 
have been struck so close it passed us. The jets of water it cast up, came down 
upon the deck as if from a fountain.
`That was well aimed,' exclaimed Wordley; and if we had been going three feet an 
hour slower than we are, we should have had the best part of our keel torn off, 
rudder and all. The speed of the Dolphin has saved her this time!'
We stood on a little further, and then tacked also. The rich bright twilight 
that so long lingers after the sun sets, still covered sea and sky with a 
brilliant rosy glow, by which the shores and the vessels in the port, and every 
object within the limits of our horizon were distinctly visible. The atmosphere 
was perfectly clear and it promised to be a light night! This would greatly 
favor us, for Wordley was apprehensive that she might escape him in the dark, 
should it cloud. But present appearances indicated a starry sky.— Both vessels 
were now standing on the same tack, a W. S. W. course, the chase about a mile 
and a half ahead, and a third of a mile to windward; but we knew we were 
lessening this distance towards the wind every moment, for our vessel was a fast 
sailor and her jib-boom never failed to go inside of whatever it was pointed at.
The twilight deepened slowly into the shadows of the starry evening, and we were 
still standing on the same course right out from the land. The schooner had made 
no demonstrations of tacking again, although she had been running a league on 
this tack, which was also her losing one; her real gain to windward being on the 
other or starboard tack.
`That fellow intends to run away from us, be sure,' said Wordley after watching 
her through his glass. He sees we can waltz to windward quite as delicately as 
he can and now he means to run for it across the channel, doubtless
CHAPTER III. THE DISAPPEARANCE. 
to try and reach Cuba under cover of the night. But if I lose sight of him may I 
never see Boston!'
The night set in clear and starry, so that without the aid of the glass we could 
distinctly see the grey shape of the pirate schooner flitting away on the sea 
about a two miles ahead. We were now exactly in her wake, for while she had been 
falling off a little to gain in speed what she lost at windward, Wordley, was 
keeping his vessel close hugged on a taut bow-line, thus losing in speed what he 
gained to windward. His object was to get once to the windward, letting the 
chase run on as she choose, and then give his vessel the benefit of a freer 
sheet, when he was satisfied he would be enabled to overhaul her by dint of 
faster sailing. The result will show the wisdom of this policy. Having at length 
got the wind of her, the order was given to fall off a point, and the schooner 
with every sheet eased and freed from its long restraint, went dashing on with 
music about her bows, and every strand in her telling.
Being myself only a guest on board, and non-belligerent, I had nothing to do but 
watch the schooner with an occasional peep through my glass, and see that she 
did'nt vanish like the Flying Dutchman; but Wordley having also six men 
stationed in different parts of the vessel, with orders not to take their eyes 
off the misty looking phantom ahead, not even to take time to wink, there was no 
danger that she should disappear without due notice given.
`These fellows have so many tricks,' said Wordley, approaching me as I was 
watching the swift progress of the vessel through the water, which glittered 
with myriads of phosporescent sparks as if her bows were dashing through fire 
instead of water. `They are up to all sorts of tricks! Some of them will douse 
their whole top-hamper, yards, spars, and even masts in the twinkling of a 
purser's prayers, and one might almost ride over them without seeing them, they 
lie so low in the water. Some of them will furl every stich of canvass and 
present nothing by which to distinguish her a cable's length off, even in a 
night as bright as this. Now that schooner ahead! you can just see that she is 
there with the naked eye looking like the ghost of a schooner faint and 
flickering. Now suppose she should, while we were looking away for a moment, 
suddenly lower her main and fore-sail and jibs, and furl her top-sails. Would it 
be possible for us to find her by her slender masts? Last year I was cruising in 
this same vessel on the south side of Cuba, and leisurly sailing along the coast 
a league off, one morning I saw in the offing a little fore and after making for 
the shore six miles to leeward of me. I knew there was a suspected inlet in that 
direction for the rendezvous of all sorts of sea-robbers, and was steering down 
that way to take a look in, when I saw this lugger. I put after her with all 
sail I could carry to cut her off. On finding I was in chase, she tacked all at 
once and scampered due south, wing and wing dead before the wind. Schooners like 
this sail best on the wind four points free, and perhaps this little rascal was 
aware of this fact. I however gave him chase. Well he run about forty miles to 
the southward and finding I was gaining on him gradually but surely, and perhaps 
not liking to be so far off from home, he hauled his wind and went off with a 
free sheet due east, having the wind on his larboard beam. This compelled me to 
haul a little and cut across the country as they say at home, to meet him. He 
sailed like a little devil. The schooner had to make every joint do its work to 
walk after her. Just as night set in I began to gain on her very susceptibly, 
and half an hour after sun-set I was within a mile and a half of her. I fired a 
shot across her bows, but she paid no attention to it, but still cracked on at a 
slapping pace. I swore then, that as I hoped to see Boston, I'd have that fellow 
to breakfast with me in iron mittens. I set studden-sails forward and fore and 
main gaft top-sails, sending them up and having them bent for the purpose, and 
stationing men on the lookout I soon found I was gaining upon her. It was about 
this time in the evening and a clearer night if possible, so that I was able to 
see her a mile distant and distinguish her spars!'
`Was she a large vessel of her class?' I asked.
`She was about fifty tons, half the size of the fellow ahead!
`Keep a sharp lookout there, my lads!
`Aye, aye, sir!' answered half a dozen men's voices in a cheery tone.
`Well, I got within a third of a mile of her and having taken a last close look 
at her with my glass I walked and placed it upon the binnacle and then gave the 
order to stand by and lower away the quarter boat for boarding as soon as I 
should come up with her! The coxswain and his crew had hardly got aft when I 
cast another glance in the direction of the little rascal who had given me such 
a long chase, but I could see nothing of him! Supposing the man at the helm had 
let the schooner come up into the wind, I looked at the compass, and found she 
was on her course. I then caught up my glass, and swept the range of horizon and 
water, but devil a thing could I see of her.— At the same instant three of my 
men called out in tones of surprise,
`The chase is not to be seen, sir!'
`This was very extraordinary!'
`Yes, and I was perplexed, I assure you. Lest I should run by the spot I had 
last seen her in, I immediately brought the schooner to the wind, and going 
aloft with my glass, took a survey of the sea around me. There was nothing 
visible. If any thing had been four feet above the water any where near where 
the chance ought to have been, it would not have escaped me. After a fruitless 
scrutiny of the surface of the ocean, I decended to the deck and ordered the 
vessel to be put away again, and for an hour I went sailing round in a circle of 
a mile every man and boy on board on the lookout!"
`And you discovered nothing?'
`Not a sign of any thing; and in about an hour and a half after losing sight of 
her, I gave the order to put ship about and return to the island, satisfied that 
the fellow had foundered!'
`Was it blowing hard?'
`About an eight knot breeze, and not much sea at that! But what had become of 
him if he had not gone to the bottom?'
`It is surprising indeed!'
`Well I must confess it has puzzled me to this day. My men swore it was a young 
Flying Dutchman, and I'm half a mind,' he added laughing, `to be of their 
opinion. But let us take a look at our friend ahead and see if he is likely to 
play us any trick.
`The chase is not in sight, sir?' cried an old tar from the fore-riging, using 
almost the same words Wordley had repeated in the other case.
`Not in sight?' he exclaimed, hurrying his glass to his eye.
`She has disappeared, all at once sir?' said the man at the helm, for I had my 
eye on her and saw her plainly two minutes ago!'
`Well if I dont wish I had never told about that lugger!' exclaimed Wordley. 
`This fellow has served me the same trick I fear!'
`What, gone to the bottom!' I asked laughing.
`No—but some internal artifice or other. He is not visible that is a fact, as I 
hope to see Boston! Do you make out any thing?'
`I can see nothing,' I answered after a close survey of the sea ahead, with my 
glass.
`She bore a point and a half to windward, sir, when I saw her three minutes 
ago,' said the helmsman,' for I set her by compass!'
`Then luff that much and stick her dead on to the spot! If she has gone down we 
shall find her bones floating about, and if she has only struck her masts we 
shall walk right over her hull! This is all of telling about that confounded 
other affair!'
The disappointment and chagrin of the brave officer was only exceeded by his 
astonishment at this sudden disappearance of the chase. With his glass at his 
eye he took a stand upon the gun forward and closely scanned the surface of the 
ocean. He rubbed the lens of his glass at least a dozen times with the cornor of 
his silk handkerchief and as many times replaced the instrument to his eye. But 
the sight of the vessel did not reward his perseverance.
`We ought to be now in her neighborhood,' he said coming aft. `Now every man of 
you open all the eyes you've got, and see with the ends of your fingers. She 
must be somewhere about here.'
`Have you a blue-light on board?' I asked.
`No, but by the lord Harry, I can soon make something that will answer the 
purpose. I have half a score of rockets below, and I will send one of these up 
with lighted swab of oakum dipped in tar!'
The idea was no sooner suggested than carried into execution. The rocket was 
bound to a spar that projected over the gang-way, and a hairy mass of oakum, 
like a Medusa's head, was secured to the staff. A slow match was placed in the 
midst of it, and ignited. The rocket was then let off into the air. The weight 
of its unusual appendage retarded somewhat its velocity, but it nevertheless 
rose boldly skyward, and by the time it had reached its greatest altitude, the 
wind of its progress had kindled into a blaze, which communicating with the 
oakum, exploded into a vast mass of the most brilliant light.
`Dont look after the light, but at the sea,' shouted the Captain, who had kept 
his eyelids down to a level with the horizon, that he might have the full 
benefit of the reflection upon the surface. It shed abroad far and wide, a wild 
glare, lighting up the ocean for a mile around us. Then it began to descend like 
some fiery fiend hurled from the skies, and with a loud hiss plunged into the 
sea. All was instantly dark—darker than before, to our vision. I felt the firm 
grasp of Wordley upon my arm as the light began to fall, and his finger pointed 
me in silence to a black mass to windward and astern about two cables length 
distant. I had hardly caught a glimpse of it when we were in darkness. The 
glance was so brief that I could not tell whether it was a black rock, or a 
vessel's hull!
He sprung to the compass and fixed the bearings of it, and then his noble voice 
was heard ringing like a trumpet.
`Ready about! All hands to tack ship! Lively, men lively!'
The crew sprung to their several posts ignorant of the cause of the thrilling 
order; yet guessing at the truth. The boatswain's whistle piped loud and shrill. 
The schooner's head came up to the wind, her upper sails shivering, then filled 
reversed against the mast; and then amid the flying of sheets and braces, the 
swinging round of yards and swooping over of booms, she set her bows the other 
way and was soon dashing on in the direction in which we had discovered the dark 
object upon the water.
`There is no doubt that it is the vessel,' I remarked to Wordley as he took his 
station on the weather side of the quarter-deck upon a gun-carriage.
`No. I saw the fellow as plain as I see my hand. He had struck his top-masts and 
taken in every inch of canvass, and lay upon the water drifting.— I dare say he 
expected he should escape us; and 'fore George! he like to have done it, for we 
had passed him without seeing him, if it had not been for the rocket and its 
fiery tail. We must keep a sharp look out now, or the fellow will get off yet!'
A dozen men were on the bows and in the fore-rigging watching the sea, and in 
five minutes the cry was—
`A sail dead ahead, sir!'
Wordley seized his trumpet and sprung upon a weather gun. There was none 
visible.
`To leeward, sir!' called out the Boatswain.
We ran to the other side of the vessel just in time to see dash swiftly past us, 
a large fore and aft topsail schooner, steering on the opposite tack, and to 
hear a voice from her deck say in a pleasant ironical way—
`Good night, gentleman; a pleasant cruise to you!'
The next instant she was nearly out of sight, far astern!
CHAPTER IV. THE LAST SHOT. 
`If that is not the schooner may I never see Boston!' exclaimed Wordley, as soon 
as he could find words to give expression to his astonishment. Ready about!'
The next moment we were dashing along on the other tack, and in full chase. With 
the glass the schooner was visible like a gray cloud resting upon the sea. The 
excitement on board was now intense. The men believed the vessel to be a 
phantom, and some roundly swore it was the same slippery fellow that had got 
away from them the year before, the young Flying Dutchman! '
Wordley paced the deck a few moments in silence after he had seen that the 
schooner was doing her best, and then stopping by me, he said impressively,
`What do you think of all this?'
`That, after he saw the illumination you made, he knew he must be discovered and 
so at once made sail and resolved to pass you boldly, as the only chance of 
escaping.
`That is what I think,' he said thoughtfully; `but it is very singular. I am not 
superstitious, but to tell you the truth, I begin to think I might as well give 
hase to a cloud on the horizon, as to this fellow!'
The light of the binnacle shone upon his face, and I could see, as I looked at 
it with surprise, that he was serious.
`There is nothing supernatural in what has occurred!'
`No, nothing yet; but if she don't show us some other trick before long, may I 
never see Boston!'
`Most sailors I know, are superstitious, but I have not usually found officers 
so,' I remarked.
`Why not officers? we commune night after night, as we pace our lonely decks; we 
commune, I say, night after night with the same deep and mysterious sea on which 
we live, and with the same starry or stormy skies above us, and which is our 
only roof. Our ears hear the same moanings and whisperings from the waves and 
the winds, and our imaginations people the surrounding air and ocean with the 
strange forms and flitting shapes! It is no wonder sailors, I mean by the term 
both officers and men, should be superstitious.— There is not a man on board but 
what believes in the Flying Dutchman as faithfully as he believes in the 
existence of old Neptune!'
`That is rather equivocal faith,' I said laughing. `Do you mean to say the men 
believe that there is such a personage as Neptune!'
`Ask one of them! There is an old man-of-war's man there at the main tack 
coiling up the slack. `Come here Jack!'
`Aye, aye sir,' answered the tar crossing the deck and touching his tarpaulin. 
`Do you believe in Neptune?'
`Do you mean old father Nep with the beard and grains, sir?' asked Jack 
respectfully.
`Yes, Jack!'
`Why sartinly, sir, I hopes I do!' responded the tar giving a pull at his 
trousers on either hip, and touching his cap at the same time with a certain 
reverence of manner, as if with an involuntary feeling of respect for the 
bearded sea-king.
`Have you ever seen him, Jack?' I enquired.
`That I cant swear to sir, because its not bible proof: but then if I said as 
how I had'nt seen him, I believe I should lie!'
`You believe there is such a craft cruising the wide ocean as the Dutchman, dont 
you Jack?' asked the Captain after taking a long and steady look at the schooner 
ahead, and satisfying himself that she was still visible.
`The Flying Dutchman, sir?'
`Yes, Jack!'
`It stands to reason I does. He has been seen a hundred times,' he answered with 
positiveness. `I have had a glimpse at him twice myself!'
`You have, Jack?'
`Yes, sir, and I knew ship-mates who have had him come athwart their course as 
many as seven times in a cruise! I never want to see him, for the ship that 
falls in with this crazy craft never brings all her crew safe to port; and if 
she meets him thrice she finds the bottom afore her best bower will, that is 
gospel!'
`Well Jack, you may go forward and keep a good look out, and tell the lads there 
to button their eyes back, for that fellow ahead must'nt give us the slip a 
second time!'
`We are gaining on the vessel,' I said as I took up the glass; `I can make out 
the spaces between her yards and sails which were blended with them in a 
confused mass a few moment ago!'
`You are right. I will train the long gun upon him, now I have him in range and 
see if I cant cripple him. He is not more than three quarters of a mile ahead of 
us. Hark! Do you hear and see that! It is a pistol that had been discharged on 
board of her, by accident, I suppose. The sound was so clear and distinct that 
she cannot be so far off! Come forward with me and I will train the forty two 
upon her and send him my respects!'
The gun was loaded and then accurately levelled by Wordley upon the vessel which 
was now plainly distinguishable without the glass; and, therefore, it was 
evident that we were rapidly approaching her.
`Now I will try whether his sails are made of canvass or of moonlight,' said 
Wordley as he took the lighted fuse from the hand of the gunner and moved it two 
or three times through the air to brighten the ignited end.
He applied it to the priming and the flashing light of the explosion showed us 
plainly the whole proportions of the schooner towards which the roaring ball of 
iron was hurled. It was but for an instant,like the transient picture produced 
by a magic lantern. Smoke enveloped us, and our ears, almost deafened by the 
report, were bent eagerly to catch any sound from the direction in which the 
shot had sped.
`She has got it?' shouted Wordley as a crashing sound accompanied with cries 
wild and shrieking was borne to us! `She has got it, every ounce of it, and much 
good may it do her. Hark! here that sharp noise? Now listen for the splash! 
There it is! One of her masts has gone by the board!'
With the glass I could see that his ear had not deceived him. Her foremast had 
fallen carrying with it all the sails over the side into the sea. As soon as 
Wordley saw this he seemed a new man! He was all life and gaiety. He gave his 
orders with spirit and a cheerful `aye, aye' came back from the men. The gloom 
and superstition of his mind as well as of their's vanished, and the feeling 
throughout the vessel was one of exhiliration and joyous anticipation. Crippled 
as she was, the chase could not now escape us. Each instant we were expecting a 
return from her first gun, but as she did not fall off as she would be 
compelled, to bring it to bear, it being forward, we supposed she was unable to 
do so. But as we came up we could see that she was lying perfectly unmanageable 
upon the water and rapidly falling off from the wind, so that if we had not 
luffed she would the next moment have laid broadside to our course! Wordley 
grasped his trumpet as we came nearer and sprung upon the companion-way.
`Have you struck?'
`Yes!' was the answer, but not in the same voice that before had bade us good 
night and wished us bon voyage so gaily.
`Why dont you lower your main-sail if you can't come to?' he cried as we went 
bounding on past his stern, crossing his wake and wearing round upon his 
starboard-quarter, for he was now going off before the wind under the main-sail 
and gaft-topsail, while his top-mast stay-sail torn away from the fore mast, was 
blowing out strait like a streamer, as she was driven helplessly along. `Lower 
the main-sail to stop her way, and send a boat on board!'
`Aye, sir.'
We were now moving on side by side both right before the wind, which was the 
only course the prize could take. To keep from shooting ahead, as she drove in 
this way only about four knots, and the wind blew an eight knot breeze, we had 
to brail up our fore-sail, drop the main peak, and even let the fore top-sail 
drop upon the crosstrees. The distance between us was about one hundred yards.
Their main-sail came down by the run, and a boat was lowered into the water. It 
soon approached us and a rope being flung to them from the gang-way it was soon 
alongside. A person who stood in the stern, got out and came upon deck. Wordley 
met him at the gang-way, on each side of which stood a sailor holding a 
battle-lantern that cast a bright light upon the scene. By their glare the 
stranger was distinctly seen. He was a man under thirty years of age, of the 
middle height, but a strong frame compact and symmetrical.— His face was either 
English or American, though his complexion was very dark. He was dressed in a 
blue seaman's roundabout but had the air of a person superior in rank to a 
common-sailor. The expression of his face was singularly resolute.
`Are you the captain of the prize, sir?' asked Wordley.
`No, sir, only the second in command, answered the man glancing around upon the 
group with a cool and observing look.
`Where is your captain?' demanded Wordley quickly. `Why has he not come on board 
of me?'
`He was wounded by that last shot of yours, and lies bleeding in his cabin. But 
for this we should hardly have struck, but fought it out till one or the other 
of us went down!'
`He ordered you to strike!'
`He did, and it is the first time such an order came from his lips,' said the 
man with a sort of sad pride in the character of his chief.
`What is the name of your vessel?'
`El Viento?'
`That is The Wind!'
`Yes, `The Wind' is her name!'
`She is well named?'
`Have you brought your papers on board with you?' asked Wordley with irony. `I 
suppose they will say that you are from port Westerly, bound to port Easterly, 
and that your captain, is captain North wind, and your crew are a crew of fresh 
breezes!'
`We have no papers,' answered the man doggedly. `We are what we are— free 
travellers of the waves!'
`Free robbers rather than travellers. What is your captain's name?,
`Captain Rafael?'
`That man I have heard of before; but it could not be he, for he was shot in 
Havana, a year ago! A daring fellow he was!'
The man smiled significantly and said—
`My captain is also called Captain Rafael, sir. It is a good name for a free 
flag!'
`You are then a pirate?'
`For want of a more courteous term,' answered the man with a smile of reckless 
hardihood. `But it is not worth while to be talking here, sir, while our 
schooner is going down by the head as rapidly as she can sink.'
`Is this true!'
`Your last shot passed out under her bows a foot below the water-mark.— She was 
filling when I left her! Our boats too are stove, save the one I came in!'
`You are confoundedly cool about it,' cried Wordley with angry emotion.— Lower 
away the boats all! `Lively men! Four men to each—nomore, as there will be 
enough to bring back! I see her settling by the head plainly.— Give way towards 
her, and not let the poor devils perish, for they must live to be hanged; and I 
want to see this captain Rafael in person!'
Three boats were now pulling towards the sinking vessel, and in the leading one 
stood up Wordley animating his boats'crew. In a few moments she had struck the 
vessel's side and he was upon her deck.
`Save yourselves all of you by the boats,' was heard in his commanding voice She 
is settling fast and will soon pitch under.'
The pirates sprung for the boats, the love of life overcoming every other 
feeling, and soon crowded them. As fast as they came up the side and stepped on 
deck they were ironed and sent below. Wordley came last and aided by two men 
lifted the wounded Captain upon deck and had him conveyed to his cabin, and 
being himself an excellent surgeon, and his only one on board, he prepared to 
examine his wounds, and dress them.
`For,' said he to me, making use of his favorite pharse, `may I never see Boston 
if he shant live to be hanged!'
CHAPTER V. 
As the schooner was taken and sunk in the Spanish waters, Wordley resolved to 
stand into Havana, and surrender his prisoners to Tacon who was then 
governor-general of Cuba. The wounded buccaneer Captain remained an inmate of 
the cabin, and as he seemed to be a person of education and polished manners, 
Wordley treated him with great kindness and attention; for he was not a man to 
triumph over the unfortunate and guilty.
The appearance of the young man deeply interested us both. He was about eight 
and twenty years of age, with a clear blue eye and fair waving hair, and a 
countenance naturally mild; but to which familiarity with stern scenes had given 
a character of decision. The wound which he had received was comparatively 
slight and did not produce a single complaint. He remained reclining upon a 
setee which Wordley had fitted up for him, with a mattrass and pillow, and 
seemed lost in painful thought. At intervals he would raise his eyes and turn 
them towards me as I sat reading in the pleasant draft of the cabin windows. 
Seeing that he looked as if he wished to address me, I laid down my book and 
went to his side. Hitherto he had not made any reply to any questions put to 
him, but seemed to desire to be left to himself.
`Can I do any thing for you, senor?' I asked in Spanish.
`You are very kind,' he answered in pure English. `I would like to know if I am 
to be taken into Havana?'
`Yes. We are within three hours sail of that Port now,' answered Wordley, who 
came into the cabin at the same moment.
The pirate's countenance became very pale, and he appeared to be strug gling 
with some strong emotion. With an effort he resumed his composure, and said—
`I would prefer being taken to the States!'
`It matters little whether you end your days at Key-West or in Havana, I should 
suppose,' answered Wordley.
`I have reasons for not wishing to be delivered to Governor Tacon,' he said 
impressively.
`You should have considered those reasons, senor, before you hoisted the ree 
flag!'
He made no answer; but pressing his hand upon his forehead seemed as if either 
in mental or physical pain. Wordley was shortly after called to the deck by his 
second in command, when the prisoner turning to me said—
`I should like to relate to you if you will listen to me, the circumstances 
which have brought me into the condition you now behold me. If Captain Wordley 
will come into the cabin I should be glad to have him hear what I have to say. I 
went on deck and communicated the words of the prisoner, and Wordley accompanied 
me below. `My motive in entering upon this narrative of the history of the 
past,' he said after we were seated by his couch, `is not to excite your 
sympathy or seek to escape the punishment that is justly my due! I know that I 
have incurred the highest penalty of the laws of nations, and I am ready to meet 
my doom, though I would have chosen death by the hands of the hangman than that 
I am destined to suffer!'
`How do you mean?' asked Wordley with surprise. `Tacon never honor's buccaneers 
by shooting them!'
No; would that such could be my death? But I am doomed to a more dreadful end! 
know you that I have once been tried and condemned for this very offence against 
the laws, and that I escaped from the foot of the scaffold on the morning of my 
intended execution. Tacon, the Captain-general, issued a proclamation offering a 
large reward for my capture and declaring at the time that if I were re-taken, I 
should be broken daily upon the wheel till life was extinct! This is the 
horrible death that awaits me if I am taken to Cuba. But I am not a man to 
supplicate! I have sown and I am willing to reap!'
`Under what name was you sentenced?' asked Wordley with interest.
`Under that of Captain Rafael!'
`Is it possible that Rafael the pirate is my prisoner! Your men refused to give 
me any other name for you than `El Capitan!'
`I am the Rafael Mutes,' answered the young man with a flush of pride.
`But you are not a Spaniard? You speak English with too much purity,' said 
Wordley.
`I am an American!'
`An American!' we both repeated with surprise, for we had made our minds from 
his very fair complexion that he must be a young Englishman.
`Yes, senores, I am an American and a native of Virginia, of what part I will 
not now reveal. If you would like to know the events which led to the present 
result I will relate them to you. You will then, perhaps, find that I am less to 
blame than I seem; though I do not desire to palliate my conduct!— Circumstances 
may force men to crime, but the guilt incurred is not lessened thereby; for 
death is easier and more honorable than life supported by crime; and the brave 
can meet death in a hundred battle fields on the earth, for wars cease not even 
among waters!
`My father was a man of fortune, holding a large estate, and the owner of more 
than a hundred slaves. I and a sister, two years my junior, were his only 
children. At the age of eighteen I was sent from home to a northern university, 
where I remained until I was twenty-one, when I returned home to find my father 
on his death bed. On entering his chamber and approaching his bed-side he waved 
me indignantly away and closing his eyes refused to look upon me!
`Father, my dear father!' I cried rushing forward; `do you not know me! Do you 
not hear the voice of your son Rafael?'
`Away—you are no longer my son!' he cried in stern accents, articulating with 
difficulty. I looked at my sister who stood by his pillow, but her silent glance 
seemed to reprove me, while she said in an under tone—
`Leave the room, I beg of you, brother! Your presence affects him!'
`And why should it?' I cried with indignant surprise. `Is he not my father? am I 
not his son? Who should kneel by his bedside and close his dying eyes but his 
son? There is some horrible mystery here!' And thus expressing my emotion, I 
caught my father's hand and pressed it to my lips and kneeling by his side, with 
tears implored his blessing and his forgiveness if I had done any thing to incur 
his displeasure.
`The words `False and degenerate son!' escaped brokenly from his lips, and after 
a brief struggle for breath he resigned it forever. I rose to my feet and stood 
gazing upon him with horror. My sister flung herself shrieking upon his body, 
and overwhelmed with horror at the words that rung in my ears, I rushed from the 
chamber.
What had I done? What had brought upon me the dying anger of my father? I was 
unable to answer the question. I put to myself a hundred times as I paced madly 
up and down the long piazza. At length I became more calm and resolved to seek 
my sister and learn what had produced this change in my beloved father's manner 
towards me; for I had always loved and honored him, and he had been proud of my 
filial affection for him. My conscience accused me of nothing! I found my sister 
Anna weeping in her chamber! 
`For God's sake, dear Anna, what does all this mean?' I asked as I entered the 
room; `I have not been at home an hour and I am received like an enemy!'
`I am surprised you should ask brother,' she said with a cold look.
`And you my foe too!' I cried in a sort of despair. `What horrible mystery is 
this? What have I done? Speak! You shall answer me and not fly from the room as 
if I were a monster! It is enough for me to have my father's dying curse ringing 
in my ears, without your hatred, sister! Why am I recieved and treated thus?'
`Do you mock me! My father's displeasure was just! What you have recieved you 
have only merited!'
`His displeasure just! Merited what I have received,' I repeated in 
astonishment. `Three years I have been absent from home during which time, I 
have acted honorably in all my intercourse with the world. I have not in that 
time seen you nor my father but once, two summer's ago, when you came to visit 
me for a few weeks and I went to Saratoga with you. Then we parted as father and 
son, as brother and sister should part. Since then I have not met my father to 
incur his displeasure. What dreadful crime am I supposed to be guilty of?'
`You cannot deceive me into the belief that you feel now differently from what 
you felt when you wrote your strange letters! I look upon you as an enemy to my 
father and to me, Rafael, as well as a foe to your native state, and a rebel 
against its laws!'
`Are you mad?' I asked with astonishment. `I must believe that my father's 
reason wandered in his dying moments and that his death has turned your brain, 
Anna!' I said kindly; for I had no suspicions of the astounding crime of which I 
was supposed to be guilty.
`No, Rafael,' she answered me disengaging her hand and going out of the room, `I 
am not deranged, neither was our father, as you well knew I have loved you 
Rafael as a sister until the developments of your true character made it known 
to me that you were unworthy of the affection of a true daughter of Virginia. 
Recreant to your native land! Defiler of her good name!— An enemy to her 
institutions! A rebel and a conspirator how could I acknowledge you as brother? 
How did you expect your father would, on your return, recognise you as a son?'
I was utterly confounded. I gazed upon her with a surprise too great for 
utterance. Conscious that I had been innocent of every act unworthy a gentle man 
or a true son of Virginia, it was easier to believe that she was deranged then 
to accuse myself of any unworthy deed.
`Anna,' I said following her into the hall and speaking as soothingly as it was 
in my power to do; for I was excited by grief and surprise.
`I cannot talk with you, Rafael,' she answered me with an air of haughty 
displeasure; and passing into a room opposite, she closed the door and turned 
the key on the inside.
I stood petrified with amazement. At this instant a footstep on the gallery 
caused me to turn. I beheld with pleasure a gentleman who had been my tutor and 
my sister's before I entered college; and who had for a year or two after I had 
left continued to instruct Anna. He was a New England man about thirty years of 
age, with an intelligent countenance, and a manner and smile extremely 
prepossessing. He had been the past year post-master in the town near which we 
lived, and to which all our letters came. He also was a lawyer having been 
engaged in reading laws while he was tutor in my father's family.
On seeing him, I hastened towards him with my hand extended, for I had always 
liked the man, and to do him justice he was a very thorough teacher. He advanced 
also reaching forth his hand he warmly shook mine, expressing his gratification 
at seeing me returned; but at the same time manifested his sorrow at the death 
of my father.
I felt relieved to find one person to meet me with cordiality; and as soon as we 
had interchanged the first words of meeting, I implored him to tell me if he 
knew, what fearful mystery was hanging over me!'
CHAPTER VI. THE CONSPIRACY. 
`The Tutor regarded me with looks of surprise when I had made this demand of him 
to explain the mystery hanging over me,' resumed Rafael after a few moment's 
silence, during which he seemed to suffer equally from mental and physical pain.
`Do you not know what I mean, Mr. Whanley?' I asked. `But no, you cannot or you 
would treat me as they have treated me! You would scorn me too, for what God 
knows!'
`Scorn, Rafael,' he said. `I have only regarded you with love and affection. ' 
And he took my hand and pressed it with friendly warmth.
`Then let me tell you all,' I said overcome by his kindness.
`I knew you have suffered a great loss in the death of your father,' he said, 
`and your emotion I can easily account for. His death has been expected the last 
ten days; though you were not written to as you were expected home daily! Did 
you get here to see him die?' he asked earnestly.
`Come with me into this room,' I said drawing him into the library and closing 
the door! `Mr Whanley I then began, I have seen my father die! I flew to his 
bedside to receive his dying blessing, but he refused to look at me! he refused 
to speak to me except in accents of horror and hatred! Thus he died denouncing 
me as a false son! Before I could learn from him the cause of this conduct 
towards me, his spirit had flown forever! I then sought my sister to learn from 
her what had happened to bring my father's hatred upon my head, and I found her 
equally cold and hostile. Dark hints and fearful suspicions was all I could 
obtain from her! You appeared and met me as they should have met me, kind and 
friendly and full of affectionate pleasure! I am willing to attribute something 
to my sister's grief; but behind all, there is some dreadful mystery! What have 
you heard against me?' I demanded with tears in my eyes.
`Nothing, Rafael,' he said, `I know nothing against you! Your relation surprises 
me! I deeply sympathise with you! If you desire it I will endeavor to ascertain 
from your sister what has occurred?'
`No, no,' I answered; `I will see my sister and know all from her own mouth! She 
will not refuse to tell me. I shall demand the knowledge as a right!'
`Such was my reply to Mr Whanley,' continued the young Captain of the schooner; 
`and leaving while he went voluntarily, as he said, to superintend the 
laying-out ceremonies for the dead and arrange for the funeral, I hastened to my 
sister. I did not find her in her room, and seeking her, discovered her in the 
near verandah and Whanley just about to take her hand and whisper to her. On 
seeing me he retired suddenly, while I could not but feel surprised to find him 
in that part of the house when I supposed him in the other wing in which my 
father had died. I observed he seemed embarrassed and my sister also. But I did 
not suspect him then of an evil toward me.
`I have sought you, Anna, I said, to have an end put to this suspense. Whatever 
I have done to bring upon my head the displeasure of my father, is equally known 
to you, as is apparent from your reception of me. Now tell me at once what I 
have done? You have thrown out terms that to me are incomprehensible. My 
conscience acquits me of all wrong to him or you!'
`I dont know,' said my sister to me in reply, `which most distresses and amazes 
me, your guilt or your hypocricy, in the face of your very letter to dare to 
deny your course!'
`What letters? what course?' I asked with surprise. `For God's sake, Anna tell 
me what I am charged with?'
`I will answer you by your own written words,' she answered, `if, as it seems, 
you have so thoroughly became lost, as not to suspect your present conduct base 
and guilty. If you have become so deformed as not to suspect yourself, I will 
show you your own letters!'
As she spoke she led the way to the room I had left and going to a desk unlocked 
it and from a package of letters, took out one and handed it to me, saying— 
`You will not have the daring, brother, to deny writing that?'
`No,' said I as I saw that it was a letter addressed to her in my handwriting 
and mailed at New Haven, from which all my letters had been written for the last 
three years.
`And, yet you ask why my father died without looking kindly upon you, or why I 
receive you as I have done!'
`Then what can I have written in this letter?' I exclaimed unfolding it with 
trembling hands and opening it. My eye run hurriedly over the page, and I was 
instantly struck with an expression that I knew I had never penned. This led me 
to begin and read the letter, when I saw with astonishment that I was not the 
author of a single line! The hand-writing was a perfect imitation of my own and 
deceived my own eyes, but the language of the letter showed me that it had never 
been penned by me. I read paragraph after paragraph with horror and indignation 
and revenge at my heart. I will repeat to you the letter, senors! It was written 
about two months previous, and dated at College, and mailed at the same Post 
Office. It began `My dear sister Anna,
`I have at last made up my mind to communicate to you the change in my views and 
opinions in relation to our southern institution. Brought up surrounded by 
slaves, and from earliest infancy, seeing them in a position inferior and 
servile, I naturally conceived that this was their natural condition. I have, 
however, recently changed all my views and opinions. I have learned at the north 
the great truth that all men are born free and equal! I have also learned to 
regard Africans as men! I have learned to view not only the traffic in slaves as 
wicked and unjust, but also to regard as wicked and unjust, the holding in 
bondage the children, however remote the generation, of slaves so stolen and 
trafficked for? I have, in a word, become an abolitionist! But this name so 
defamed and ignominous at the South, is here in this atmosphere of freedom and 
human liberty, a distinction of honor. I am proud of the appellation! and I look 
forward to the time when I shall hail every southern man and woman as an 
Abolitionist! To the emancipation of the poor slaves I shall henceforth devote 
my heart and hand, my purse and influence! In this benevolent enterprise, I know 
you will join me, my dear sister! I have no time to write more now; but in a 
subsequent letter I will enter more fully into the subject, and unfold before 
you the arguments which have made a northern-man of me. I shall also write to my 
father!
Your affectionate brother, 
Raphael.'
`The whole of this letter,' I exclaimed to my sister as soon as I could command 
language, `is a vile forgery! I never penned it in my life!'
`But there is the Post-mark! and the writing is your own! `Nay, even the seal!' 
she said looking at me with surprise.
My earnestness impressed her; but still she looked suspicious and taking out 
another letter, handed it to me saying, but with a doubtful air,
`Nor this either? Is not this your writing?'
`It resembles mine! I should say it was mine,' I answered, `but for what I have 
just now read.'
`Read this also,' she said with emphasis.
`I will repeat to you, gentlemen, what I read; for the words are grown upon my 
memory. This letter was addressed not to my sister, but to my father.— The 
accurate resemblance of the hand-writing to my own, confounded me.— It began: 
`My dear father,
After mature deliberation I have come to the determination of writing to you 
upon a subject which engaged my thoughts and influenced my actions. Educated as 
I was, till I left home the idea that there was a moral wrong in holding our 
fellow-beings in slavery never occurred to me. As a matter of reflection it 
never entered my mind. I regarded bondage as the natural condition of the negro 
and never troubled myself to examine into the wrongs or rights involved. But I 
have had my eyes opened by mingling with the society of northerners, to whom 
slavery is detestable, and who regard slave-holders with abhorrence. From them 
my mind has became enlightened, the veil of darkness and ignorance has been 
removed, and the atrocity and wickedness of the whole system has been revealed 
to me in the clearest light. I am now a man and a freeman! I can now point 
without a blush to the memorable opening of the incomparable Constitution which 
declares `all men born free and equal!' Convinced of the crime of slavery, I 
cannot consistently act otherwise than in harmony with my principles! I have 
written to you the change in my feelings and views as an act of duty. I feel I 
shall incur your displeasure, but I cannot withhold the fact from you, that I 
have become what I am! In a word, sir, I feel that I can no longer make use of 
the fruits of the slaves toil! and I candidly tell you that when my property 
comes into my hands, if I cannot prevail on you sooner to do it, I mean to free 
all the slaves that fall to me. I may be impoverished, but this will not alter 
my opinions; and I shall have the proud satisfaction of having done my duty. In 
a few days the course of my collegiate studies will close, and I shall return to 
my paternal home.— There I hope to convince you by irresistable arguments that 
you are in the sight of God and all true men guilty of oppression and `of 
withholding from the laborer his hire.'
Your affectionate son, 
Rafael.'
When the young buccaneer chief had ended the recital of this letter, he threw 
himself back upon his pillow for a moment, and covered his face with his hands, 
as if renewing again the bitterness of the hour when he first read it in his 
sister's presence. At length he resumed:
`This letter is also false and forged like the other?' I cried to Anna, after I 
had mastered the strong emotions of anger and surprise that seized me on reading 
the second letter and discovering the conspiracy against me. My sister regarded 
me for some moments steadfastly, and then said impressively,
`Do you speak truly, brother?'
`As I have a Creator and am to be judged by him, these letters are false! I 
never wrote a line of them.' I answered.
`Then you deny the principles! You are not an Abolitionist?' she cried.
`No. I am a Virginian and a true friend to my native state! Some one has forged 
these letters to you and my father, for what end God knows! I am as I was when I 
left Virginia!'
`And have you not received any letters either from my father nor myself in reply 
them?' she asked firmly.
`Not one!' I answered. `I have never got a letter alluding to these letters, and 
if you received them it is a wonder I did not!'
`It is very extraordinary. We both wrote you! And you replied to both of us!'
`Replied?' I exclaimed thunderstruck.
`Yes. Here is your reply to mine, and also to father's!'
`And she placed two letters in my hand,' continued the buccaneer. `I read them 
and found indeed that they were mostskilfully executed replies, in which I 
defended my course and hinted at becoming a public declaimer against slavery 
from the forum.
`Then you are innocent. Rafael!' cried my sister. `You are innocent of all!'
`Yes. I have been the victim of some dangerous enemy!'
`Then you have not thought of organizing a secret club of young men in this 
State for the purpose of creating a revolution, overturning the government of 
the State and establishing one upon the same basis as the States of New 
England?— a club called `The Brothers of Liberty?'
`Never!' I answered. `Has such a charge been made against me too?' asked 
overcome with surprise.
`Yes.' She answered. `Six days ago my father received an anonymous letter 
informing him that you were the leader of such a secret party, and that you were 
in correspondence with some young men in the county whom your letters had 
brought over to your principles. This intelligence was credible after the 
letters we had received and it so distressed our father that his sudden illness 
may be owing to it; for although a month ago he had a paralytic attack he was 
getting over it. But this letter confirming his worst fears, was a severe shock 
to him and he sunk under it!'
`I am not surprised now,' I answered, `at my father's treatment or yours. These 
letters explain all! I must now find out who my enemy is? Do you suspect any 
one?'
`No one,' was her reply.
`Nor did I, then,' said the buccaneer fixing his eye upon us with deep feeling; 
but I was not long in ignorance of my enemy, or of his motives, as you shall 
learn.'
CHAPTER VII. THE VISIT. 
`The direction in which my thoughts turned to discover who had written these 
letters,' said the buccaneer, `was the northern university which I had just 
left. The letters were mailed there, and it was my impression that they were 
written there. I therefore began to revolve in my mind any enemy I had there who 
would be likely to endeavor to do me an injury in this manner. But I could fix 
suspicion upon no one. Whoever he was, I was at least satisfied that he knew me 
intimately; was familiar with my style of writing as well as a perfect imitator 
of my penmanship; and that he knew when I wrote to my parents, and when they 
wrote to me; for he had evidently prevented my father's and my sister's letters 
from reaching me.
`But I will not detain you, gentlemen,' said the wounded man, with recapituation 
of the process by which I sought to trace these letters to the hand that wrote 
them. Neither my sister nor myself were able to fasten suspicion upon any one. 
She now believed me innocent and we were reconciled, and it would have given her 
as much joy almost as it would have given me, to have discovered the author of 
these letters. The day of the funeral of my father came and we followed him to 
the grave. On our return to the house the will was opened in the presence of my 
father's attorney, a justice of the peace, Mr. Whanley, the Tutor, and a few 
relatives who remained.
The will was read aloud and I found to my confusion and dismay that I was 
disinherited. Yes, gentlemen, my father acting under the influence of those 
accursed letters had cut me off from my inheritance and made my sister the sole 
heir to his property, and Mr. Whanley his executor! The clause affecting me ran 
thus:
`Whereas my son Rafael having become an enemy to his native State, an alien from 
his father's affection, and a traitor to every honorable feeling, by conjoining 
himself with the Abolitionists of the north, I have thought it best to devise 
and bequeath all my possessions real and personal to my beloved daughter Anna. 
In so doing I do not any injury to my son Rafael aforesaid, inasmuch as he has 
in his letters to me solemnly declared not only all slavery, crime, but those 
who partake of the fruits of the slaves' labor criminals. I leave him therefore 
to the innocence he covets!'
`When I had recovered a little from the consternation and anger which the 
reading of the will had produced, I openly and publicly declared before them all 
that I was not an Abolitionist, that my father had been deceived, and that I was 
as true a son of Virginia as I had ever been! But my protestations of innocence 
were all in vain towards changing the opinion formed by these standing around 
me! They shrunk from me with horror and words of bitter insult rung in my ears.
`I followed my sister to her room and accused her of having influenced my 
father's will in her own behalf; but with tears she not only protested her 
innocence, but also convinced me of her entire ignorance of the tenor of the 
will until she had heard it read.
I now questioned her closely with reference to the particulars of the reception 
of the forged letters. She said they were brought to her and her father from the 
Post Office, by the servant who usually went to the office. I then examined 
carefully the New Haven post-mark upon them, comparing it with that on some 
letters which I knew were genuine. After a careful comparison, I was satisfied 
that they were in a very slight degree dissimilar; but the difference was so 
trifling, that no one causually observing them would have suspected the forgery. 
The difference consisted in the cross-bar to the letter H, the bar being a 
heavier mark on the seal stamp, than on the false one.
`I showed this to my sister, and we began to endeavor to fasten suspicion upon 
the author of these forgeries. But all our conjectures were vain. I resolved to 
seek Mr. Whanley, and lay the whole matter before him. This course my sister 
also advised. I found him at his office, and opened the subject to him as I 
would have done to a brother. But first I learned from him that he had been in 
ignorance of my father's intention to appoint him executor and knew nothing of 
it until the will was opened. If I had known he said taking me by the hand, `I 
should positively have refused to act as executor to a will which disinherited 
you!'
I told all to him and read the letters at the same time declaring my innocence. 
He betrayed the utmost surprise and promised to use every means to make known 
the perpetration of this forgery. I left him perfectly satisfied of his 
friendship and confident in his integrity. But all my efforts to divine the 
author of my wrongs was unavailing. As it regarded my property I did not so much 
have cause to regret being disinherited as my sister declared she should share 
with me equally in the patrimony. By Whanley's suggestion, I resolved to visit 
New Haven, and get there if possible some clue to the author of my wrongs. I 
departed from home two months after my father's decease on this mission. I 
reached the place of my destination and there remained several days trying to 
find some clue to my secret foe. Application with the letters in my hand to the 
Post-master confirmed my suspicion that the stamp was forged! Nor had such 
letters been mailed on that day. I was convinced that I must seek my calumniator 
nearer home. Then gradually for the first time, suggested I know not by what 
train of thought, the idea of Whanley being the man forced itself upon me. I 
rejected the suspicion in the beginning, and tried to throw it off, but it at 
length pressed upon me so strongly, that I resolved to return home at once and 
charge him with it!
On reaching my father's house I found Whanley in possession! He met me in the 
same fawning manner as before, but I rejected his hand; for I had worked myself 
up, by thinking of circumstances, to the conviction that Whanley was the man who 
had injured me. He saw by my manner at once that I was not in humor with him, 
and being guilty he divined the cause.
`Why this coldness?' he asked looking very pale.
`Why are you here?' I demanded.
`As the executor of your father's estate, I am here to protect and take care of 
the house!'
`Where is my sister?' I demanded.
`I have sent her to a boarding-school!' he answered
`By what authority?' I demanded.
`That of her guardian!' he responded firmly.
`Where is she?' I asked fiercely.
`That I shall not reveal at present!' was his reply. `I am not to be bullied by 
a beggar!' was his rejoinder.
`I seized him by the throat and charged him with being the author of the 
letters! By my own slaves was he rescued and I turned out of my father's house!' 
But I will hasten to the end of my story of wrongs. That night I received 
intelligence from a faithful negro, who came to the tavern whither I went, that 
there was an armed party coming to apprehend me as an abolitionist and the 
leader of a secret abolitionist club which I was said to be forming in the 
country. He brought me a horse and entreated me to escape. I did so! I mounted 
him and fled, not for fear, but that I might have time and opportunity for 
revenge. I was the next day but one in Richmond, when I learned that I had been 
out-lawed by a proclamation of the governor and a reward offered for my 
apprehension? I fled also from Richmond sailing away in a brig bound for the 
West Indies. For three years I was a wanderer and I became a pirate, not from 
choice, but from circumstances. The brig was shipwrecked and myself and one 
seaman were driven ashore upon an island which was the resort of pirates. I 
remained with them three years by compulsion, for each day I was burning with 
vengeance against Whanley whose conduct was to me, a convincing proof of his 
guilt, and I was filled with anxiety about my sister. At length the captain of 
our schooner, of which I was made second in command, was killed, and I succeeded 
him. The very day I had the command, I steered for the United States and 
entering the mouth of James River by night ascended and anchored within a half 
of a mile of my paternal home.
In disguise I went ashore the next morning and after an hour's cautious 
observation of the premises, I saw Whanley come forth, mount a saddle horse 
which had once been my own, and attended by a servant ride away, After he had 
got out of sight, I advanced to the door, being dressed as a common sailor, and 
asked of a negro whom I well knew, `who lives there!'
`Mr Whanley, massa!' was his reply.
`Is Miss Whanley here?' I asked with doubt and fear.
`Massa mean mistress,' he replied. `She Missy Whanley once, but she marry massa 
Whanley and now she mistress! Dare she be now?'
`As he spoke, I saw appear on the gallery a lady whom I with difficulty 
recognised as my once lovely sister! I saw at a glance that she was wretched. I 
approached her and touching my hat asked her if she would let me speak to her 
alone, as I had a message from her brother! At this allusion to one whom she 
supposed dead, she uttered a cry of joy that told me she loved me still!— She 
led me into the library where we had had our first interview and there, I made 
myself known to her! On recognizing me, she clung around my neck and with tears 
of joy welcomed me to her heart's embrace. I asked her if she was indeed married 
to Whanley?' She looked alarmed as if she feared he would hear, and then 
answered `Yes, and I have reason to weep tears of blood! Know you, Rafael, that 
we have both been his victims! It was he who wrote those letters—for I have 
discovered all, all —wrote them that my father might will to me the whole 
estate! His object in my being sole inheritor was to get the whole into his 
possession by marrying me. He it was who forged those letters and poisoned our 
father's mind, and he it was who drew up the will! This fearful accusation of 
himself, I had heard him make over and over again in his troubled sleep, and at 
length when I was convinced of its truth enough to charge him with it, I did so. 
He confeseed it all, but threatened my life and that of my infant's if I dared 
reveal it to a human soul. He put me to school in a retired village, and under 
circumstances so unpleasant that I was wretched. He came to see me and told me 
if I would marry him, he would remove me and make me happy in the world of 
fashion. I consented, and we have been married two years! Every day he renews 
his horrid threat to me! He brought me a paper containing a notice of your 
death, but which he must have forged. This was that I might believe I had no one 
to appeal to! It was he who got out the writ of arrest against you, and induced 
the governor to offer a reward for your apprehension!'
`Judge my feeling, gentlemen,' said the buccaneer Captain with strong emotion, 
`judge my feelings on hearing this revelation of crimes on the part of a man we 
had trusted as a brother. But I will not describe what I experienced. I talked 
with my sister and told her what I should do. I told her that she must remain 
passive, and let no feeling for the father of her child lead her to interfere 
with my vengeance. I then left her!
`That night as soon as it was dark, I landed with my men, surrounded the house, 
took Whanley and carried him on board my schooner. I secured him in the cabin 
and immediately got under weigh. I left behind the following note for my sister.
`Dear Anna, From this hour enjoy your estate and live for your child— You will 
never see your husband more. Within three days you will be a widow! I free you 
forever from a tyrant and consummate, at the same time, my own vengeance! Be 
happy, and ere long we shall meet again!'
`After we had got to sea I went below and made myself known to Whanley I never 
witnessed fear and horrow like his! I accused him of his crimes, made him 
confess them in writing, and then with my own hands, fastened the rope to his 
neck by which he was the next moment swinging at the yard arm!'
CHAPTER VIII. THE LEAPER. 
When the young buccaneer captain had ended this part of his narrative, he 
remained a little while deeply moved by his feelings; and then proceeded:
`Thus was I avenged! I and my sister, for the great wrongs we had received at 
the hands of this man. As circumstances and not choice had led me to embrace the 
life of a pirate, I now resolved to quit the career I had entered upon, and on 
my vessel reaching Cuba, I resigned the command to my lieutenant and took 
passage in a merchantman for Virginia, determined henceforward to dwell on my 
paternal estate with my sister.
At first I kept private, but gradually ventured abroad into society, and made 
myself known. But I first sent to the governor the written confession made by 
Whanley, and received from him the assurance that I should not be molested as he 
had been long satisfied that I was innocent of the crime alleged against me, and 
that no secret society had been organized for liberating the slaves. I did not 
of course tell the governor that I had hanged Whanley. I represented to him that 
I had made him confess, and that after the confession he had left the country.
`Rumors, however, soon became rife that Whanley had been dealt foully with, and 
murdering him, that I might possess the property. The excitement against me grew 
each day stronger; but as I knew his death could not be proved against me, I 
resolved to brave it out. One evening with this spirit, I attended a public 
assembly at Richmond, when I was recognised by a gentleman present as having 
boarded, with my schooner, a vessel in which he was passenger, and plundered 
her. He openly charged me with piracy and drew upon me the indignation of all 
present; for already suspected, it was easy for men to believe any thing against 
me. Officers were sent for to arrest me, and I had to fight my way out of the 
hall to escape.
`I now knew that as the supposed murderer of Whanley, and as a recognized 
pirate, I should be hunted down and that the old story of my conspiracy against 
my native State would be revived, and that under all these charges I should be 
crushed. So I spurred to my sister's abode, briefly told her of my danger, 
collected what money and valuables I could, resumed my sailor's garb and left 
the house by one gate, just as my pursuers rode into the yard by another. I 
galloped along the river-road for several leagues until I fell in with a brig 
just getting underweight from a tobacco plantation landing. The brig was bound 
for Mobile. I turned my horse loose and was received on board of her as a 
seaman.
The eighth day out as we were passing the `Double-Headed Shot Keys' a schooner 
hove in sight to windward and bore down upon us. As she came nearer our captain 
felt alarmed and said he feared she was a buccaneer; for at that period as well 
as now there were many such vessels cruising in these waters and about Cape St. 
Antonio. This remark drew my attention towards her more particularly and 
borrowing the glass from the mate, I looked at her and confirmed a suspicion I 
had already conceived. As she came nearer and before she hoisted a green flag, I 
saw that she was my schooner. She fired a gun over us and finding he could not 
escape the Captain hove to. The schooner was laid along side and my lieutenant 
who was a young Spaniard of a noble family, at the head of a score of men leaped 
on board, cutlass in hand, shouting upon all to submit. I met him and called him 
by name. He started back with surprise and pleasure, and then dropping his 
cutlass embraced me. In a few words I told him why I was there. He insisted on 
my resuming the command, and as I was once more a wanderer and an outlaw, I 
yielded to his wishes and the intreaties of the men, and resumed my command. 
Going on board I dressed myself in an uniform I had left behind me; and when I 
came on deck thus attired, and resuming authority over the pirate crew, the 
completion of the astonishment of the captain and people of the brig may be 
conceived.
`Instead of being plundered and their vessel burned, I gave the captain 
permission to go on his voyage unharmed; for this was the condition upon which I 
consented to accept the command.
`I was now once more an outlaw! I neither defend nor palliate my course. 
Persecutions and unmerited disgrace had rendered me indifferent to results. I 
knew that the world looked upon me as a conspirator and as a murderer!'
`And did you not hang Whanley?' asked lieutenant Wordley with a look of 
surprise.
`Yes. But I regard not that act as a dishonorable one. It was a just act of 
retribution upon one who had shortened my father's days, poisoned his mind 
against me, exiled me from my native state, and wrested from me my rightful 
possessions and good name! It was no murder—it was justice! The laws of the land 
could not reach him; and rather than he should live, I slew him! I do not regret 
it! Whanley is dead, but I was only the instument of justice human and divine in 
punishing him! But I care not now to excuse any thing I have done;' he added 
with a gloomy air. `I am willing to abide the issue!'
`The day after I took command of the schooner, we fell in with a vessel bound to 
Cadiz. We boarded her, were resisted, and many were killed on both sides. She 
was very richly laden and after I had taken out her specie, I let her go on her 
way. But, instead of proceeding on her voyage, she put back to Havana and 
reported what had happened. Three armed vessels were immediately despatched in 
three different directions, and by one of them I was captured, and taken into 
port. My schooner was anchored under the guns of the Moro, and my lieutenant and 
I were thrown into one of its dungeons, while my men were placed in the city 
Carcel. We were brought to trial and Alvaro and myself were condemned to be shot 
with forty three of my men, the ensuing morning. We were conducted from the 
citadel to the place of execution. It was a level green plateau overhanging the 
harbor. The height was forty feet. My schooner lay anchored so near we could 
have conversed with any one upon her decks. As we approached the verge to stand 
in line, we were unbound and told to form in front of a double file of soldiers. 
As I found myself free from the cords, I bounded suddenly forward, and leaped 
out into the air beyond the precipice. The waters closed over me, and being a 
good swimmer, I continued to move rapidly beneath the surface towards the 
schooner and rose to take breath some distance from the spot. When I did so, I 
saw the air filled with the bodies of men, flying and plunging around me into 
the flood. Animated by my example Alvaro had followed me; and the men seeing 
this, broke from the line of death, and in a body rushed to the precipice and 
made the leap after him. For a moment the soldiers were confounded by this 
movement, but recovering their self-possession they began to pour in their fire 
upon the last of the number, so that out of the leapers three struck the water 
dead men. The air now rung with the shouts of the officers, and the ringing of 
musketry. As I looked up, I saw the verge of the cliff lined with the troops who 
were firing into the water in vollies. Raising my voice, I encouraged my men and 
directed them to swim to the schooner, but to keep under the surface as long as 
possible at a time. I soon reached my vessel and drew myself up over her bows by 
the cable, which I instantly cut, setting her adrift. The men one after another 
came up and climbed on board. Alvaro did not appear, and was no doubt struck by 
a bullet. Out of forty three men, I counted thirty two that came on board. In 
less than tour minutes, under the fire of musketry from the cliff, I had sail on 
the schooner, and in seven minutes we were out of reach of musket shot; but five 
more of my men were killed upon the deck. Beyond the Moro a Spanish frigate lay 
at anchor, and she opened upon us; but as the wind was fair and fresh, we were 
under her fire not one minute and a half, she being unable to bring her guns to 
bear except in a direct line. Yet one of her shot struck us carrying away our 
stern-davits, shivering the main-boom, and killing one man. In thirty minutes 
from the time we got under sail, we were in the offing and bowling along with a 
flowing sheet, at the rate of eight knots!'
`That was a most daring escape;' said Wordley. `I have heard of it before. I 
arrived in Havana three days after it, when it was the only topic of 
conversation in all circles. You then are Rafael El Saltador, or `the Leaper' as 
men have since denominated you?' added Wordley, gazing upon him with manifest 
admiration in his looks.
`Yes, I am Capitan Rafael,' answered the buccaneer with a smile like pride 
visible in his eyes. `A large reward was now offered for my apprehension, and it 
was proclaimed by public manifesto that if re-taken I should be broken p the 
wheel! It is the prospect of this fearful death that induced me to say that I 
would rather take my trial in the States. But I am willing it should be as it 
is! With this wound in my side I have the key to my own life, and at my will can 
let it forth!'
The peculiar significance with which he spoke, could not but make a painful 
impression upon us. We were all three silent for a few moments. Wordley was 
deliberating and struggling with a desire to save him. But his duty to his 
country—to society—to himself, was a safe-guard to any weakness of the heart.
`Why did you remain then in these seas, surrounded by such perils?' he at length 
enquired of him.
`These waters were my cruising ground, and I had no wish to cruise in any 
others. Perhaps, too, I was influenced by a spirit of bravado and defiance, I 
knew that vessels were abroad in search of me, but I had made up my mind not to 
be taken! I should not have surrendered now but to an American—a countryman, and 
having received as I believed a mortal wound; and besides my men urged it, 
hoping that some good fortune might favor their escape a second time; for it 
requires great resolution for men quietly to sink in their own vessel. Chains 
with a faint hope of life, are easier conditions; and so we are your prisoners 
instead of being in the bottom of the ocean with our schooner!'
`You were bold to follow that merchant ship into the very port of Key-west,' 
remarked Wordley
`Daring is the only virtue in our profession. All our deeds are bold of 
necessity. Our existence is each moment a risk! Our lives are every hour at 
stake! For some weeks past I had fallen in with nothing of value and my men were 
becoming dissatisfied; and I therefore resolved to take the ship if possible. I 
had chased her eighteen hours, and to have her to enter her port after I had got 
within gun-shot would have created a mutiny among my men. They were, however, by 
no means reluctant to put about when they discovered an American cruiser lying 
in the harbor. Fortune favored you and I am a prisoner in your hands!'
He concluded his narration in these words uttered with an air of dignified 
resignation, and then sunk back upon his pillow exhausted by pain and the 
fatigue of speaking. It was clear by Wordley's countenance as he rose to go on 
deck that he would have set him at liberty had he the descretionary power.
`It is hard for that brave fellow to die on the wheel,' he said to me as I came 
up and stood by his side. `He has been the victim of circumstances rather than a 
depraved man! It is a pity he should have hung the villian Whanley, when he 
might have done his business by a duel. I delieve if he had taken a different 
course and brought him to the bar of justice, he could have convicted him, as 
well as cleared his own reputation and kept his hands from blood!— Well, he is a 
guilty man now, however, and I suppose deserves his fate! But it is a great 
pity, for he is a noble fellow and has the heart of a lion!'
The same evening we anchored in the harbor of Havana, and Wordley, ordering his 
cutter, pulled ashore and waited upon the Captain general to inform him of his 
capture of the notorious Rafael, El Saltador.
CHAPTER IX. THE PRISONER. 
The rumor of the capture of the noted Capitan Rafael soon filled the city and 
created universal satisfaction, especially among the mercantile community, whose 
commerce upon the ocean this daring young buccaneer had so long interrupted. On 
Wordley's return from the Palacio of the Captain-general, he was accompanied by 
a party of the palace-guard whom the governor had sent for the purpose of 
escorting our formidable prisoner to the city Carcel. At Wordley's suggestion 
they brought a litter, as Rafael was quite to ill to walk. Nevertheless, when 
the officer took possession of him he had him heavily ironed; a broad iron 
collar being fastened about his neck and secured by a padlock behind; manacles 
placed upon his wrists and fetters upon his ancles, from which passed a heavy 
chain five feet in length connecting them with the iron collar about his neck, 
and linked also to the hand-cuffs.
When Rafael had been thus ironed, he took leave of us with calmness, and said to 
Wordley,
`Fare well, sir! To-morrow I shall be in the other world! We shall meet no more 
in this. Accept my grateful acknowledgements for your humanity and kindness to 
me. Farewell and prosper in your noble profession. What I have done, I have 
done. I must bear the ignominy of my own acts."
He was borne upon the litter into the barge along side and it pulled to the 
shore surrounded and followed by at least a hundred boats filled with those whom 
the knowledge of the circumstances had drawn to the scene. When he landed the 
crowd upon the Quay was so dense that the soldiers from the Plaza had to open a 
passage in the rear to the water for the escort to pass up from the landing.
Towards sunset we also went on shore and walked up to the American coffee house. 
There we learned that "El Saltador" as every one called him, was to be broken on 
the wheel at nine o'clock the next morning in the Campo of Public Execution's 
outside the walls not far from the alameda.
`Poor fellow,' ejaculated Wordley; `let us go and see him and endeavor to cheer 
him in his last hours. He has been a great criminal but there is much to admire 
in his character. He is not wholly depraved. I will wait on the governor and get 
permission to see him and also endeavor to have his chains removed. Let us go at 
once to the Palace!'
On reaching the entrance, Wordley gave his name to the sentinel at the gate who 
despatched it by a sergeant to the Captain-general. In a few moments he returned 
and asked us to follow him. We ascended the spacious stair-case of the Palacio 
to an upper corridor at the opposite side of which was a spacious hall where we 
found the vice-gerent of Cuba promonading with two Spanish officers dressed in 
gorgeous uniforms. On perceiving Wordley, His Excellency recognized him and 
advanced three or four steps to meet him.
`Ah Senior Capitan Americano,' he exclaimed with a smile of great satisfaction. 
`I am glad to see you. I was about to send a message on board your vessel of war 
inviting you to do me the honor to dine with me to-morrow. You have done me and 
all men great service in capturing this buccaneer whom we have so long desired 
to take, and the highest honors we can render you will poorly express our 
pleasure and indebtedness!'
`I have but done my duty as an officer in the service of my country,' answered 
Wordley. `Has your Excellency yet spoken with the prisoner?'
`No! He lies in the dungeon of the condemned in chains! I will see him when he 
is led forth to execution!'
`Is your Excellency aware that he is wounded?'
`Yes. Is it severely?'
`So much so, that without being chained there is little fear that he will 
escape. I should esteem it a favor if your Excellency would give orders to take 
off his chains and let the last hours of his unhappy life be lightened!'
`I fear the man too much, Senor Capitan, not to take the greatest precautions 
against his escape. He is a daring man, and would escape where no other man 
could! Pardon me, but I must decline acceding to your humane request. I am 
resolved this man shall not elude me. He shall be broken on the wheel to-morrow 
as I live! Once I have condemned him to be shot; a second time I have condemned 
him to the wheel! He shall not have the hair's breadth of a chance given him for 
a third condemnaton and sentence. Twice condemned is enough! What other favor 
have I it in my power to grant you?'
`Permission, with my friend, to visit Captain Rafael in his cell!'
`That I will grant and will myself accompany you,' answered Tacon with 
animation. I would like to see him. Come in and take coffee with me, and after a 
cigar we will proceed to his prison!'
We accompanied the Captain-general across the noble hall and being joined by the 
Spanish officers were issued by a slave into a cool verandah opening upon an 
orange and lemon garden where coffee and cigars awaited us. It was just after 
sunset, and the mellow radiance of the golden twilight pervaded all the 
atmosphere. The air was laden with the fragrance of innumerable flowers, and the 
branches of the orange-trees were filled with singing birds, and fountains 
cooled the air! The hum of the busy city, scarcely penetrated to this retired 
spot where the energetic Captain-general of Cuba threw off the cares and 
restraints of his responsible position.
Coffee of delicious fragrance was handed to us by slaves dressed in muslin 
trousers and jackets, and others followed with semillas, a hard sweet buscuit, 
and another with cigars on a silver salver, and another with a silver lamp.— We 
did not take our seats around a table but upon settees and ottomans placed 
around the verandah in the coolest situations. The governor and Spanish officers 
smoked and drank coffee, whiffed and sipped alternately with infinite gusto. We, 
however, contented ourselves with taking the cigars after coffee. If any thing 
could have surpassed the delicate flavor of the coffee, it was the flavor of the 
cigars. Out of Havana such luxuries as the governor regaled us with are unknown. 
They were truthfully named `Regalias.'
While we were smoking Wordley enquired what was to be done with the pirate-crew 
which had been removed from the schooner of war to the city prison. 
`They are to be hung to-morrow,' answered Tacon firmly. `All of them but eleven 
are those who escaped with El Saltador. But I shall hang them all alike without 
trial, for these men should not have been in such company if they expected any 
clemency.'
`No pirate deserves to live an hour after his capture,' said one of the Spanish 
officers. `Taken under a piritical flag is enough to hang them without trial! 
They are all too inhuman to live!'
`Not so, Don Ferdinand,' said the Captain-general smiling. `So long as I have a 
neice I shall remember that but for one of these pirates she would have been 
lost to me forever!'
`How was he of service to her, your Excellency?' asked Wordley with true Yankee 
inquisitiveness.
`In this way,' answered the Governor lighting a third `Regalia.' Three years and 
a half ago my brother died in Spain. He was a widower with only one child, at 
the time of his death. This child, a lovely girl of thirteen, he bequeathed to 
my paternal care and affection. I sent for her to come to Cuba, and in a Spanish 
brig of war that was soon to sail. The day before she was to embark, the brig of 
war wrecked, with half the vessels, in the port of Cadiz, upon the quay. My 
neice, the Donna Leonor, anxious to reach me, embarked in a merchant vessel 
which, when within four days of Havana, was chased and captured by a pirate. 
They plundered the vessel of the most valuable articles they could lay their 
hands on, and the buccaneer captain struck with the beauty of Donna Leonor 
determined to take her and her servants on board of his vessel, leaving the ship 
to proceed on her voyage. He was only prevented from carrying the fancy into 
execution by his lieutenant, a very young man, and as Donna Leonor describes, 
very handsome and noble, who interfered to protect her at the risk of his own 
life, threatening to shoot his captain dead upon the spot if he dared to lay his 
hand upon her. The young officer was seconded by several of the pirates whom he 
called around him, and the buccaneer captain sullenly yielded to the control of 
a spirit more indomitaable than his own. In a word Donna Leonor was saved the 
ignominy and wretchedness of becoming a Corsair's bride by the young man's 
daring; and the vessel was suffered to proceed on her voyage bringing me my 
loved niece in safety. She now never hears of pirates being taken that she 
does'nt ask me to be sure before they are shot that `her preserver,' as she 
terms the bold young pirate, is not one of them!'
Wordley and I looked at one another during this recital and exchanged looks of 
surprise and of mutual intelligence. Facts precisely like these Rafael had 
related to us subsequently to the general narrative he had given of his life; 
and had stated that they occurred when he was acting under his first captain. He 
did not, however, say who the young maiden was, whom he had protected; and it is 
probable that her rank was concealed from him by the Spanish Captain, lest large 
ransom should have been demanded. If Rafael had known the young girl he had 
protected to be the niece of the Captain-general, it would have been natural 
that he should have made known to him his services when he was formerly his 
prisoner. But then, his pride was so high, it is doubtful whether he would have 
condescended to take advantage of such a circumstances towards mitigating his 
sentence.
`I have heard Captain Rafael relate a similar incident in which he was an actor, 
your Excellency,' said Wordley. `I should not be surprised if he should prove to 
have been the gallant man who saved your niece, Donna Leonor!'
`Was Don Rafael second in command at the time, and was it about three years and 
a half ago?'
`Yes, your Excellency, so he informs us!'
`Did he tell you the name of the ship on board which the young girl he protected 
was passenger?'
`The Carlos III.'
The very same vessel in which Donna Leonor came!' exclaimed the Captain general 
with surprise. `Can it be possible this is the same person?'
`It must be without question,' answered Wordley.
`I trust it will not prove so,' answered his Excellency with a look of anxiety. 
`I should be sorry to execute a man who has done me and mine such good service! 
But we will ascertain this!'
The Captain-general then gave orders to have `El Saltador' brought, in chains as 
he was, into his presence. The day had now closed and numerous wax candles 
supplied the loss of day-light. While the captain of the body-guard was 
despatched for the prisoner, His Excellency went out and soon returned leading 
in a lovely girl of seventeen, with dark Castillian eyes and hair, and a form of 
bewitching symmetry. He presented us to her as the Donna Leonor, his neice. In a 
few moments the clinking of chains and the tramp of the heavy feet of the 
soldiers who bore the litter, announced the approach of Rafael.— They entered 
and deposited their burden. Rafael reclined upon his elbow and looked calmly 
around. He was very pale but his countenance was firm and composed. It wore a 
slight air of surprise as if wondering why he had been brought into the presence 
of Tacon.
`Leonor,' said the Governor, `look well at the prisoner, and —'
Before he could complete what he was about say, she, who had been all the while 
attentively regarding him, exclaimed—
`It is he!'
`Who, Leonor?'
`My preserver! Oh, uncle spare him, if he is thy prisoner!'
`It is Rafael El Saltador! Shall I spare him!'
`El Saltador!' she exclaimed with a start of alarm.
`It is he? Is he the same who saved you from the Pirate chief?'
`He is!' she answered earnestly.
The expression of Rafael's face showed plainly that he recognized her, but he 
remained silent, waiting the issue, and gazing on her with a look of gratitude 
and surprise.
CHAPTER X. THE WHEEL. 
The emotion of Donna Leonor on recognising her protector and beholding him in 
chains before her, rendered her insensible to the consideration that he was the 
notorious buccaneer `El Saltador,' whose deeds were the theme of every tongue. 
She approached him and laying her hand upon his, while her dark, beautiful eyes 
were swimming with tears of pity and gratitude—
`Noble Don Rafael, I thank Heaven for giving me an opportunity of expressing to 
you my gratitude, though I am grieved that it is under circumstances to yourself 
so unfortunate. The good deed you performed for me, will never be obliterated 
from my memory. You saved my life and honor! I will save yours!
Then turning from him, she approached her uncle the Captain-general who had been 
regarding her with a countenance full of perplexity.
`Uncle, I ask of you the life of your prisoner?' she cried with eloquent 
earnestness. `Do not refuse me! I know that he has forfeited it! I know that he 
is twice condemned! I know that he has done evil! But spare him for my sake! But 
for him I should have been lost to you forever?— But for him, instead of the 
happiness I enjoy in your presence and under your paternal protection, I should 
have been wretched and degraded! Let not the preserver of my life die!'
`I know that something is due to him, Leonor,' answered the Captain-general 
looking very much troubled, his feelings evidently struggling between his duty 
as a man and as a ruler, with a strong bias towards clemency. `But if I pardon 
Don Rafael how shall I appease the public? They will demand his death! They wait 
to witness his execution! I dare not disappoint them without sufficient reason; 
and the fact that he rescued you, my niece, I fear will weigh little with them 
at such a time! I fear El Saltador must die!'
`No—no! He must not die!' she cried fervently. It shall never be said that you 
were insensible to the dictates of generosity, you, who owe so much to Don 
Rafael; that is if you value me, whom he has preseved to you!'
`Do not plead for me, noble signora,' said Rafael with a glowing cheek and a 
sparkling eye as if his heart swelled with gratitude to her, for her interest in 
his fate,—`I have been condemned and am ready to meet my fate—that is die—though 
I would not die on the wheel!'
`You shall not die, Don Rafael! My uncle will pardon you! He is too noble to 
take the life of one who saved mine!'
`I will mitigate his sentence, niece,' answered the Captain-general. `He shall 
not be broken on the wheel. I will substitute instead the soldier's death!'
`He must not die,' answered Leonor with firmness. `I will protect him with my 
life! If it is of no value to other's it is to him, and as he has preserved it 
he shall have the protection it can afford him!'
As she spoke the spirited and generous Spanish girl left her uncle and placed 
herself by the side of the prisoner. Her uncle regarded her for some moments 
with surprise and seemed to be endeavoring to discover whether there was not a 
feeling in all this conduct deeper than mere gratitude. At length his mind 
seemed to be made up. He approached Rafael and said with dignity—
`Young man, for the sake of my neice I pardon you! It shall never be said of me 
that I sacrificed the life of own who saved the life of my neice! Remove his 
chains!'
This order was given to the Captain of his guard who stood near, and a smith 
being sent for, his irons were soon taken off and borne from the apartment. With 
a slight exertion Rafael raised himself from the litter and seizing the hand of 
Leonor kissed it with an air of grateful respect. She threw herself upon her 
uncle's bosom and wept for joy, overwhelming him with her thanks and praises for 
his goodness.
`There is a condition with your freedom, senor,' said the Governor turning to 
Rafael; it is that you leave the island within three days, and pledge me your 
honor as a man, for I believe you will regard sacredly such a pledge, that you 
will never return hither. The penalty for appearing here again be assured will 
be death?
Rafael on hearing this condition, glanced at the beautiful, earnest face of 
Leonor and then answered sadly—
`I give your Excellency the pledge you solicit!'
But he looked as if banishment from the presence of the lovely girl, were a 
punishment scarce less than death. Between her and him there was apparent, to an 
observing eye, a tender sympathy of interest already awakened, which time and 
opportunity would surely ripen into love. Leonor looked as if she would rather 
the condition had not been annexed; but she was silent.
`You have a wound,' said the governor to the young man! My surgeon shall attend 
to it! You shall be removed to a suitable apartment, where you will be held as a 
prisoner until a Spanish vessel, now in port suils for the United States on 
board which I will have you secretly conveyed. The knowledge of your pardon 
shall remain a secret from the multitude!'
`How will you prevent their knowing it?' asked one of the Spanish officers with 
a look of surprise.
`I shall find a way,' answered the governor dryly.
Rafael after his chains were removed, getting energy from the sight of the 
lovely girl whom he had served and whom he never forgotten, and inspired by the 
pardon he had so unexpectedly obtained through her intercession, felt stronger 
in heart and body, and able to sustain himself without the litter.— Leaning on 
the arm of one of the soldiers, he was conducted from the room. As he left he 
bowed to each of us and waved his hand in forewell. Leonor stood pale and silent 
regarding him attentively, and with all her woman's soul in her eyes. Their eyes 
met for an instant, and as the electric arrow darts from cloud to cloud, so 
love's arrows darted from heart to heart in that brief glance, and it needed not 
a magician to tell me two souls were made one!
CONCLUSION. 
The ensuing morning we went early on shore, curious to witness how the populace 
would conduct on learning that they were to be deprived of the gratification of 
seeing `El Saltador' broken upon the wheel. We expected to find the streets 
filled with an excited and incensed multitude. But to our surprise we found that 
there had been no public notice given by the governor of the pardon of Rafael. 
The whole city was in motion towards the Campo and all was animation with the 
prospect of the expected spectacle. We joined the moving throng towards the 
place of execution, desirous of seeing how they would bear the disappointment, 
and prepared to behold some fearful commotion as the result of Tacon's clemency.
On reaching the `Campo' which was a waste field outside of the walls, we found 
several thousand persons already assembled, and the gallows upon which the crew 
of the captured pirate vessel were to be hung, erected, and the rack or `wheel' 
placed near it. The former was full forty feet in length, it being constructed 
for the purpose of hanging the whole party at once.
`The people will be content with the hanging,' said Wordley; `and perhaps 
glutted with the death of the pirates, will not feel their disappointment in not 
having the additional spectacle of Rafael broken upon the wheel!'
While he was speaking the pirates were escorted to the gallows by a battalion of 
troops, and after the priests had performed the last offices of religion, they 
were executed.
But it was plain from the indifference with which this sight was witnessed by 
the Habaneros that they were reserving the edge of their appetite for the less 
ordinary execution upon the wheel. The execution of `El Saltador' was, besides, 
worth more then that of three score pirates to witness; and for this spectacle 
all were now on the eve of the most exciting expectation.
`I dont know how the Captain-general will appease this curiosity,' observed 
Wordley as we overheard the remarks of the spectators to each other in 
anticipation of the fearful `afterpiece' to the tragedy they had just 
witnessed.— Every eye had been fixed upon the wheel and all at once a deep 
murmur swept over the multitude like the wind stirring the leaves of a forest.
`There he is!' flew from tongue to tongue. Could it he possible? The executioner 
was actually conducting a man upon the platform of the rack.— From the distance 
at which we stood we had no doubt but that it was Rafael. We exchanged remarks 
of surprise at the Governor's perfidy, and turned away with horror from the 
painful scene!
The fearful wheel began to do its work. The air rung with two or three piercing 
shrieks! The whole multitude was as silent as the ocean in a calm. Suddenly, up 
went a great outcry that seemed to shake the Heavens. It was a cry of deep 
satisfaction and ferocious triumph. The vengeance of the people were satisfied, 
and their appetite for the horrible sated. The vast mass separated into 
fragments amid the thunder of cannon and the martial sounds of music, and poured 
back again into the streets of the city.
When we reached the Polacio, Wordely said that he would go in and learn why the 
Captain-General should have acted so deceitfully; for we deeply regretted 
Rafael's terrible end.
The governor met us in the corridor. He advanced towards us smiling. Wordley 
returned his smile with a cold, severe expression.
`Were you at the execution, Senores?' he asked.
`Yes, but —' began Wordley, with a tone of indignant emotion.
`I see that all is right, then! for by your looks you come to accuse me of 
dishonoring my word!'
`Most certainly I do!' answered Wordley, firmly.
`If you have been deceived then all has gone well, and I have no fears from the 
people. If you think you have seen Don Rafael broken on the wheel they will make 
oath that they have seen him executed!'
`I do not understand, your excellency,' said Wordley, with surprise.
`Come with me!' he said, with a peculiar manner.
We followed him along the corridor. He threw open the door of an inner room, and 
to our amazement we beheld Rafael reclining upon a sofa and looking very much 
improved in appearance and as sound in limb as if he had never been near wheel 
or rack.
`There you see, Senores sits, El Saltador,' said the Captain-General, smiling. 
`He who was broken on the rack was a condemned criminal, who was to have 
suffered next Thursday. It was necessary for the peace of the city that some one 
should die upon the wheel, and so I anticipated this criminal's day of 
execution. I had him clad in `El Saltador's garments, and as his eyes were 
bandaged the deceit could not be easily detected, especially as no one was 
suspecting such a thing as a substitute. You see I have appeased the people, 
saved Don Rafael and kept my own honor!'
A few words will now complete the story of the Twice condemned. The third day 
after the Execution of the pirates, Rafael was conveyed on board a Spanish brig 
which an hour afterwards set sail bound for New Orleans. As she passed near our 
quarter on leaving the harbor Rafael waved his hand in adieu; and then turning 
his face towards the city, and with his eye probably fastened upon the roof of 
the palace which held the lovely Spanish maiden to whom he owed his life, and 
with whom he had left his heart, he remained in this position until distance 
rendered his person no longer distinguishable.
From that period there has been no further intelligence of him. The 
Captain-General was soon after superseded and returned to Spain with the lovely 
Donna Leonor who bore with her to the golden vales of Castille a sad and gentle 
memory of the youthful buccaneer whose life she had restored to him for her own.
THE END