The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк Баум

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СКАЧАТЬ for the rude sailor that implores you to bestow him fair wind, or the poor fisherman that asks success to his nets and lines. I have been long inaccessible both to fear and to superstition. Call forth your demon, if you command one, and place him before me. The man that has spent years in company with incarnate devils, can scarce dread the presence of a disembodied fiend.”

      This was said with a careless and desperate bitterness of spirit, which proved too powerfully energetic even for the delusions of Norna’s insanity; and it was with a hollow and tremulous voice that she asked Cleveland — ” For what, then, do you hold me, if you deny the power I have bought so dearly?”

      “You have wisdom, mother,” said Cleveland; “at least you have art, and art is power. I hold you for one who knows how to steer upon the current of events, but I deny your power to change its course. Do not, therefore, waste words in quoting terrors for which I have no feeling, but tell me at once, wherefore you would have me depart?”

      “Because I will have you see Minna no more,” answered Norna — ” Because Minna is the destined bride of him whom men call Mordaunt Mertoun — Because if you depart not within twentyfour hours, utter destruction awaits you. In these plain words there is no metaphysical delusion — Answer me as plainly.”

      “In as plain words, then,” answered Cleveland, “ I will net leave these islands — not, at least, till I have seen Minna Troil; and never shall your Mordaunt possess her while I live.”

      “Hear him!” said Norna — ”hear a mortal man spurn at the means of prolonging his life! — hear a sinful — a most sinful being, refuse the time which fate yet affords for repentance, and for the salvation of an immortal soul! — Behold him how he stands erect, bold and confident in his youthful strength and courage! My eyes, unused to tears — even my eyes, which have so little cause to weep for him, are blinded with sorrow, to think what so fair a form will be ere the second sun set!”

      “Mother,” said Cleveland firmly, yet with some touch of sorrow in his voice, “ I in part understand your threats. You know more than we do of the course of the Halcyon — perhaps have the means (for I acknowledge you have shown wonderful skill of combination in such affairs) of directing her cruise our way. Be it so — I will not depart from my purpose for that risk. If the frigate comes hither, we have still our shoal water to trust to; and I think they will scarce cut us out with boats, as if we were a Spanish xebeck. I am therefore resolved I will hoist once more the flag under which I have cruised, avail ourselves of the thousand chances which have helped us in greater odds, and, at the worst, fight the vessel to the very last; and, when mortal man can do no more, it is but snapping a pistol in the powder-room, and, as we have lived, so will we die.”

      There was a dead pause as Cleveland ended; and it was broken by his resuming, in a softer tone — ”You have heard my answer, mother; let us debate it no further, but part in peace. I would willingly leave you a remembrance, that you may not forget a poor fellow to whom your services have been useful, and who parts with you in no unkindness, however unfriendly you are to his dearest interests. — Nay, do not shun, to accept such a trifle,” he said, forcing upon Norna the little silver enchased box which had been once the subject of strife betwixt Mertoun and him; “it is not for the sake of the metal, which I know you value not, but simply as a memorial that you have met him of whom many a strange tale will here; after be told in the seas which he has traversed.”

      “I acpept your gift,” said Norna, “ in token that, if I have. in aught been accessory to your fate, it was as the involuntary and grieving agent of other powers. Weil did you say we direct not the current of the events which hurry us forward, and render our utmost efforts unavailing; even as the wells of Tuftiloe1 can wheel the stoutest vessel round and round, in despite of either sail or steerage. — Pacolet!” she exclaimed, in a louder voice, “ what ho! Pacolet!”

      1 A well, in the language of those seas, denotes one of the whirlpools, or circular eddies, which wheel and boil with astonishing strength, and are very

      A large stone, which lay at the side of the wall of the hovel, fell as she spoke, and to Cleveland’s surprise, if not somewhat to his fear, the misshapen form of the dwarf was seen, like some overgrown reptile, extricating himself out of a subterranean passage, the entrance to which the stone had covered.

      Norna, as if impressed by what Cleveland had said on the subject of her supernatural pretensions, was so far from endeavouring to avail herself of this opportunity to enforce them, that she hastened to explain the phenomenon he had witnessed.

      “Such passages,” she said, “to which the entrances are carefully concealed, are frequently found in these islands — the places of retreat of the ancient inhabitants, where they sought refuge from the rage of the Normans, the pirates of that day. It was that you might avail yourself of this, in case of need, that I brought you hither. Should you observe signs of pursuit, you may either lurk in the bowels of the earth until it has passed by, or escape, if you will, through the farther entrance near the lake, by which Pacolet entered but now. — And now farewell! Think on what I have said; for as sure as you now move and breathe a living man, so surely is your doom fixed and sealed, unless, within four-and-twenty hours, you have doubled the Burgh Head.”

      “Farewell, mother! “ said Cleveland, as she departed, bending a look upon him, in which, as he could perceive by the lamp, sorrow was mingled with displeasure.

      The interview, which thus concluded, left a strong effect even upon the mind of Cleveland, accustomed as he was to imminent dangers and to hairbreadth escapes. He in vain attempted to shake off the impression left by the words of Norna, which he felt the more powerful, because they were in a great measure divested of her wonted mystical tone, which he contemned. A thousand times he regretted that he had from time to time delayed the resolution, which he had long adopted, to quit his dreadful and dangerous trade; and as often he firmly determined, that, could he but see Minna Troil once more, were it but for a last farewell, he would leave the dangerous. Hence the distinction, in old English, betwixt wells and waves, the latter signifying the direct onward course ot the tide, and the former the smooth, glassy, oily-looking whirlpools, whose strength seems to the eye almost irresistible.

      sloop as soon as his comrades were extricated from their perilous situation, endeavour to obtain the benefit of the King’s pardon, and distinguish himself, if possible, in some more honourable course of warfare.

      This resolution, to which he again and again pledged himself,, had at length a sedative effect on his mental perturbation, and, wrapt in his cloak, he enjoyed, for a time, that imperfect repose which exhausted nature demands as her tribute, even from those who are situated on the verge of the most imminent danger. But how far soever the guilty may satisfy his own mind, and stupify the feelings of remorse, by such a conditional repentance, we may well question whether it is not, in the sight of Heaven, rather a presumptuous aggravation, than an expiation of his sins.

      When Cleveland awoke, the grey dawn was already mingling with the twilight of an Orcadian night. He found himself on the verge of a beautiful sheet of water, which, close by the place where he had rested, was nearly divided by two tongues of land that approach each other from the opposing side of the lake, and are in some degree united by the Bridge of Broisgar, a long causeway, containing openings to permit the flow and reflux of the tide. Behind him, and fronting to the bridge, stood that remarkable semicircle of huge upright stones, which has no rival in Britain, excepting the inimitable monument at Stonehenge. These immense blocks of stone, all of them above twelve feet, and several being even fourteen or fifteen feet in height, stood around the pirate in the grey light of the dawning, like the phantom forms of antediluvian giants, who, shrouded in the habiliments of the dead, came to revisit, by this pale light, the earth which they had plagued by their oppression and polluted by their sins, till they brought down upon it the vengeance of long-suffering Heaven.

      Cleveland СКАЧАТЬ