The Madman and the Pirate | Page 5

Orlando. One of the ruffians easily raised the lad's light frame and bore him to the deck. Next moment a sharp cry and splash were heard. Zeppa understood it, for he had seen his son carried away. With a wild shout he burst from those who held him, and would certainly have gained the deck and leaped overboard had not a mutineer from behind felled him a second time.
When Rosco heard what had been done he ran furiously on deck, but one glance at the dark sea, as the schooner rushed swiftly over it sufficed to show him that the poor boy's case was hopeless.
But Orley's case was not as hopeless as it seemed. The plunge revived him. Accustomed to swim for hours at a time in these warm waters, he found no difficulty in supporting himself. Of course his progress was aimless, for he could not see any distance around him, but a friend had been raised up for him in that desperate hour. At the moment he had been tossed overboard, a sailor, with a touch of pity left in his breast had seized a life-buoy and thrown it after him. Orlando, after swimming about for a few minutes, struck against this buoy by chance--if we may venture to use that word in the circumstances.
Seizing the life-preserver with an earnest "thank God" in his heart if not on his lips, he clung to it and looked anxiously around.
The sight was sufficiently appalling. Thick darkness still brooded on the deep, and nothing was visible save, now and then, the crest of a breaking wave as it passed close to him, or, rolling under him, deluged his face with spray.
Chapter II.
When Antonio Zeppa recovered consciousness, he found himself lying on a mattress in the schooner's hold, bound, bleeding, and with a dull and dreadful sense of pain at his breast, which at first he could not account for. Ere long the sudden plash of a wave on the vessel's side recalled his mind to his bereavement; and a cry--loud, long, and terrible--arose from the vessel's hold, which caused even the stoutest and most reckless heart on board to quail.
Richard Rosco--now a pirate captain--heard it as he sat alone in his cabin, his elbows resting on the table, and his white face buried in his hands. He did not repent--he could not repent; at least so he said to himself while the fires kindled by a first great crime consumed him.
Men do not reach the profoundest depths of wickedness at one bound. The descent is always graduated--for there are successive rounds to the ladder of sin--but it is sometimes awfully sudden. When young Rosco left England he had committed only deeds which men are apt lightly to name the "follies" of youth. These follies, however, had proved to be terrible leaks through which streams of corruption had flowed in upon his soul. Still, he had no thought of becoming a reckless or heartless man, and would have laughed to scorn any one who should have hinted that he would ever become an outlaw and a pirate. But oppression bore heavily on his hasty, ill-disciplined temper, and now the lowest round of the ladder had been reached.
Even in this extremity he did not utterly give way. He would not become an out-and-out pirate. He would merely go forth as a plunderer to revenge himself on the world which had used him so ill. He would rob--but he would not kill; except of course in self-defence, or when men refused to give up what he demanded. He would temper retributive justice with mercy, and would not suffer injury to women or children. In short, he would become a semi-honourable, high-minded sort of pirate, pursuing wealth without bloodshed! True, in the sad case of poor Orlando, he had not managed to steer clear of murder; but then that deed was done without his orders or knowledge. If his comrades in crime had agreed, he would have preferred some sort of smuggling career; but they would not listen to that, so he had at last consented to hoist the black flag.
While the wretched youth was endeavouring to delude himself and gather crumbs of comfort from such thoughts as these, the awful cry from the ship's hold again rang out, and as his thoughts reverted to the bereaved father, and the fair, light-hearted little mother on Ratinga Island, the deadly pallor that overspread his countenance was intensified.
Rising hastily--with what intent he himself hardly knew--he proceeded to the hold. It was broad day at the time, and sufficient light penetrated the place to reveal the figure of Antonio Zeppa crouching on his mattress, with his chin upon his knees, his handsome face disfigured with the blood that had dried upon it, and a wild, fierce light gleaming