V
The balance of our hero's adventures were of a lighter sort than those
already recounted, for the next morning, the Spanish captain (a very
polite and well-bred gentleman) having fitted him out with a suit of
his own clothes, Master Harry was presented in a proper form to the
ladies. For Captain Morgan, if he had felt a liking for the young man
before, could not now show sufficient regard for him. He ate in the
great cabin and was petted by all. Madam Simon, who was a fat and
red-faced lady, was forever praising him, and the young miss, who was
extremely well-looking, was as continually making eyes at him.
She and Master Harry, I must tell you, would spend hours together, she
making pretence of teaching him French, although he was so possessed
with a passion of love that he was nigh suffocated with it. She, upon
her part, perceiving his emotions, responded with extreme good-nature
and complacency, so that had our hero been older, and the voyage proved
longer, he might have become entirely enmeshed in the toils of his fair
siren. For all this while, you are to understand, the pirates were
making sail straight for Jamaica, which they reached upon the third day
in perfect safety.
[Illustration: "SHE AND MASTER HARRY WOULD SPEND HOURS TOGETHER"]
In that time, however, the pirates had well-nigh gone crazy for joy;
for when they came to examine their purchase they discovered her cargo
to consist of plate to the prodigious sum of £130,000 in value. 'Twas a
wonder they did not all make themselves drunk for joy. No doubt they
would have done so had not Captain Morgan, knowing they were still in
the exact track of the Spanish fleets, threatened them that the first
man among them who touched a drop of rum without his permission he
would shoot him dead upon the deck. This threat had such effect that
they all remained entirely sober until they had reached Port Royal
Harbor, which they did about nine o'clock in the morning.
And now it was that our hero's romance came all tumbling down about his
ears with a run. For they had hardly come to anchor in the harbor when
a boat came from a man-of-war, and who should come stepping aboard but
Lieutenant Grantley (a particular friend of our hero's father) and his
own eldest brother Thomas, who, putting on a very stern face, informed
Master Harry that he was a desperate and hardened villain who was sure
to end at the gallows, and that he was to go immediately back to his
home again. He told our embryo pirate that his family had nigh gone
distracted because of his wicked and ungrateful conduct. Nor could our
hero move him from his inflexible purpose. "What," says our Harry, "and
will you not then let me wait until our prize is divided and I get my
share?"
"Prize, indeed!" says his brother. "And do you then really think that
your father would consent to your having a share in this terrible
bloody and murthering business?"
And so, after a good deal of argument, our hero was constrained to go;
nor did he even have an opportunity to bid adieu to his inamorata. Nor
did he see her any more, except from a distance, she standing on the
poop-deck as he was rowed away from her, her face all stained with
crying. For himself, he felt that there was no more joy in life;
nevertheless, standing up in the stern of the boat, he made shift,
though with an aching heart, to deliver her a fine bow with the hat he
had borrowed from the Spanish captain, before his brother bade him sit
down again.
And so to the ending of this story, with only this to relate, that our
Master Harry, so far from going to the gallows, became in good time a
respectable and wealthy sugar merchant with an English wife and a fine
family of children, whereunto, when the mood was upon him, he has
sometimes told these adventures (and sundry others not here recounted)
as I have told them unto you.
