The Treasure of Pearls 12 – Wraxall · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
The Treasure of Pearls 12The Rout Complete
18
Literature · Romance
The Treasure of Pearls 12
The Rout Complete
WraxallEnglish
At this declaration of the modern "Ego civis Romanus," captain Matasiete rather stepped behind the woman than otherwise, as a wary warrior chooses a cotton bale for breastwork when bullets are likely to fly.
"Tut, tut, tut! What is all this farrago to me? In plain words, I come for my daughter whom you took off shore and have on this, I am afraid, piratical craft. I summon you to restore my child straightway, or I'll give you a tough bird to pick!"
Gladsden impudently looked from her to the salteador and then back again, as if he were in doubt which was "the old bird" she offered for plucking.
"And you will have me to deal with my fresh hand at ship ruling, Señor," cried don Aníbal at last, having edged over, to the gangway, and seeing the skiff drawn near enough for the soldiers, eager for the fray under the taunts of the seamen, to haply clamber on board to his aid.
The boatmen, whom he knew something of, and who might have numbered more than one of the former crew of the Little Joker, could be relied on to back up the musketeers, he believed.
"My young Captain, if you play the resistant, hang me if I shall not bring you to reason and decorate a shark's tooth with fragments of your hide! Even yet, you do not know of what I am capable! Rayo de Dios. Mind yourself! Patience is not one of my virtues!"
The consul intimated to Gladsden that there was no necessity of an outbreak of temper, as, while the brigantine's crew could lay out the soldiers comfortably in a twinkling, his own boat's crew could eat up the skiff's propelling force without salt.
"Will you answer me, sir," resumed the stout lady.
"Señorita," Gladsden responded, with all the self-possession possible, "I do not know what you are driving at. I have nothing to do with your bucket of tar--I mean your family affairs, and I do not want to dip into it. If your kinswoman has left your agreeable society, I daresay she had her grounds of action. It is no lookout of mine, and I shall keep my fingers clear of it, I tell you. Whether you go around rummaging for her or not, I shall pay no heed, so long as you do not flounce about my ship, hardly of your burthen for such carasolling, telling me your troubles. As for this gentleman," he went on, spinning round so fiercely on Master Matasiete, with the new log line of nominatives, "I warn him charitably that if he does not stick his long cabbage cutter between his legs and scuttle off instanter, I will hurl him, his names and titles, his long nose and long moustache, clean over the side to regale the harbour scavenger. This little programme being clearly laid down, I rather think you twain had better drop back into your boat."
He thereupon turned his back on my lady as if to give his men the order. She retreated a step, but, turning as red in the gills as a turkey-cock, blurted out--
"Stay, stay, master Captain. You shall not slide out of it thus. I have an order of the secretary of the colonel governor to take my dear child back from any place whatever."
"Suppose you are good enough to let me inspect this warrant, madam?" said Mr. Lyons, quietly.
"I have no objections. You are not a boor. Your residence here has civilised you. Is it not perfectly in order?"
"Beautifully inscribed, madam," replied the pro-consul; "only that writ does not run here!"
"Why not, pray?" she exclaimed, haughtily, bridling up at the implied slight to Mexico.
"Simply because the Port Governor himself has no right to issue search warrants for foreign vessels, even though the application is backed up by so noted a banker as don Stefano Garcia. In the first place, your complaint ought to have been laid before me--from the moment an Englishman is accused. I would have then opened an inquiry, and if it appeared proper that the British shipping in port should be examined I would have so advised Colonel Fontoro, and my chancellor would have been charged to accompany you in the investigation. I do not say that, on account of the somewhat slow movements of that peculiar creature, the 'red tape worm,'" he added, smiling softly, "all these indispensable regulations would not have tried your ladyship's patience, but, I believe, our office is credited with more celerity than your own government houses. At all events, as the forms have been ignored, this order has no value. I also think you had better retire, for this captain, as he notified you very kindly, has the right to tumble you neck and crop over the board, and what little I know of him makes it certain that he will not hesitate to carry out his warning if either of you continue obstinately to stay here contrary to his will!"
It is impossible to depict the rage which swayed the stout woman as she heard this speech, in a firm voice and peremptory tone. She flew out against the speaker, the captain and all the grinning crew, to the Chinese cook and cabin boy themselves, with all the strongest insults and threats in her resonant Castilian tongue, to which had been added the native additions not found in dictionaries of the Spanish Academy, which glanced off blunted from the frigid Englishman, however.
The prudent captain of salteadores and pirates, as the case might be, took care not to intervene while under don Jorge Federico's eye. His own wandered after he had secured an open way to retreat, and he managed, unseen by the others, to exchange a glance with Ignacio, whose head just peeped up out of the fore hatch, where he was ensconced.
"This is all very well," cried the enormous virago at last, "I do withdraw because you are all in the plot against me, and I have no power, poor little weak woman (afeniquita) that I am to enforce my rights! But I'll spend half my fortune to punish this outrage. Oh, that the guns of the island would blow you over the little stars if you seek to escape me. We shall meet again, you puppy; come, Don Aníbal Cristobal de Luna y Pizarro y Amalgro de Cortes, follow me. I have taken a vow that you shall be my son-in-law; and you shall wear that title though it cost me my own name."
"You are not likely to lose yours by marriage," observed Mr. Gladsden, accompanying her to the side opening. "At least, I'll back that opinion roundly."
"Vulgar buffoon!" she exclaimed, shrugging her shoulders till her jewels jingled like a head mule's bells. "Come, dear Don Aníbal; let us leave this Indian canoe. I repeat that you shall be the husband of my daughter."
The Mexican had stepped into the boat, spite of the rule to give place to the dame, and omitted to offer his hand, as a fresh arrival shocked his sight. It was Benito Vázquez Bustamente, coming off with his baggage in a shore boat, managed by a couple of Indians, one young enough to be the grandchild of the other. Both had those bloodshot eyes which are the living tokens of a life as a pearl diver.
"You may bestow your daughter on whom you like," interposed the young Mexican, at one spring impatiently clearing the shallop and the ducking heads of the startled soldiers, and alighting between the robber captain and that of the Burlonilla, who seemed about to step into the flat boat and cuff the Mexican even there. "But doña Dolores is only your niece, and you lie after the most shameful pattern when you pretend to the honour of being her mother."
This unexpected address so dumbfounded the huge señora, that she almost fell back upon the soldier, and would have done so only that the prick of a bayonet, "peaking up," broke into her absence of mind, due to the consternation.
Amid a roar of laughter as she floundered upon the nearly crushed soldier, trying to right her upon her feet, the shallop was pushed off, and the Indians of Benito aiding the movement and from it glancing to the brigantine's side, their little boat took its place, and began to discharge the baggage which the pearl diver had collected to make his wife's voyage more comfortable.
A little while after the deputy-consul, thanked warmly by all parties concerned, entered his longboat, and was rapidly transported to land, even before the infuriated don Aníbal and the lady whom he had so feebly cavaliered arrived at the pier side. It seemed to him, as he glanced amusedly into it, that a strange face had been added to the crew, but his attention was immediately diverted by smoke beyond the breakwater, denoting the coming of a steamer, and he forbore to increase the humiliation of the two Mexicans by dwelling on them.
Not a quarter of an hour afterwards, as the steamer was signalled, and showing her private emblem, was telegraphed to don Stefano Garcia as the Casta Susana, of Acapulco, direct from the Sandwich Islands, consigned to him, the goleta left the port, speeding under all sail, right through the steamer's trailing smoke.
For one second this vapour eclipsed the Burlonilla, which seeing, Matasiete standing on the pier head beside the baffled señora Maria Josefa, remarked:
"There is nothing under canvas that can take that craft; but I will have a try at it with steam. Will you come?"
"Anywhere!" cried the vindictive sister of don José de Miranda, "Anywhere, if revenge only flourishes there."
"I think," muttered Ignacio to himself behind this worthy pair, "that don Jorge Federico had far better have left me first officer of the Burlonilla. At the same rank on board of the Casta Susana, methinks I shall handle my brother's pearls before he does."
