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Show FicK EODNEY; 11 Or, The Adventures of i; j An Eton Boy... S ) by JAftAES g r-e in r. CHAPTER VIII. (Continued.) "I remember well when, from a wild forest, I saw before me a long blue ridge. It was the Sierra Leonda or the Mountain of the Lioness, as the niggers thereabout call it, the highest in North or South Guinea. Glad was I, Master Rodney, to see the flag of old England waving on the fort and in the bay. There was a sloop of war at anchor there, the Active; and "when she fired the evening gun you would have thought a whole fleet was saluting, salut-ing, there are so many echoing caves and dents in the mountains and along the shore. "I soon made my way home to England, Eng-land, but was more laughed at than pitied for my queer figure-head, which frightened some folks, my old mother especially, for she banged the door right in my face, and called for the police when I went to her old bunk at me. As for poor nam. ne possessed only a brass tobacv-uft. a short, black pipe, and one shilling and sixpence; six-pence; yet he was speedily deprived of them by one who seemed to be the leader of the gang. "You rascally Jack Spaniard!" said Tom, shaking his clenched fist in the robber's face, "if ever I haul alongside of you elsewhere, look out for squalls!" At this they all laughed, and seized us by the arms, dragged us into the back part of the cavern or fissure in the rocks, leaving one of their number, num-ber, armed with a musket, as sentinel, at the entrance, where he lit a paper cigar, and stretching himself on the 'grassy bank, placed his hands under his head, and proceeded to leisurely smoke in the sunshine. These proceedings filled us with great alarm; now that they had robbed rob-bed us of everything save our "Hush, Tom," said I, for I was lis- tcning to a di .ssion which took place among the Spaoiards. ' "Do you understand their lingo?" "A little." "What are they saying?" he asked, with growing interest. "I will tell you immediately." But as they all spoke at once in the sonorous Spanish of the Catalonian coast, mingled with obscure slang and nautical phrases, some time elapsed before I could understand them. Meanwhile, Mean-while, how terrible were the thoughts that filled my mind. "'n' these fellows murdered and cast us Into that awful chasm, the deed would never be known; until the day of doom our fate and our remains could no more be traced than the smoke that melts into the sky. Even if we escaped unhurt, but were detained detain-ed so long that the brig sailed without us, what could be our condition, penniless, pen-niless, forlorn and unknown, in that foreign island? But this was a minor evil. Then I burned to avenge the lawless treatment to which we were subjected, and the blows and bruises their cowardly cow-ardly hands had dealt so freely. "Companeros," I heard one say, "one of these fellows is tattooed and would' sell very well to the South American planters with the rest that will soon be under hatches. He is worth keeping, keep-ing, if he cannot ransom himself; 03 for the other. " "El muchaco!" (the boy) said they, glancing at me. "Si el page de escabo if he is allowed al-lowed to return, a complaint may find its way to the senor alcalde, whose alguazils may come and borrow our topsails and anchor for a time; whereas, where-as, if we have him where the others went yesterday " "Where?" "Into the ventana, hombre!" was the fierce response; "and then no more will be heard of the affair." My blood grew cold at these words, and I scarcely knew what followed, till the first man who spoke came forward for-ward and addressed us. "Inglesos," said he, "we have decided de-cided that one of you, after swearing clothes, what could their object be? One of them produced two pieces of rope, with which our hands were tied. Dragged by some, and receiving severe blows and bruises from the clenched hands and musket-butts of others accompanied by the imprecations impreca-tions and coarse laughter of all we were conveyed through a low-roofed grotto, or natural gallery in the rocks, the echoes of which repeated their voices with a thousand reverberations. The only light here was by the reflection re-flection of the sunshine at the entrance, en-trance, where the basalt was coated by a white substance, the debris of some old volcanic eruption; for the slope up which we had been ascending all Deptford. "However, I got used . to all that sort of thing; but as folks are so ill-bred and uncharitable ashore, I have left Deptford forever, and keep always afloat, to be out of harm's way. So that's the yarn of how I became tattooed, tat-tooed, Master Rodney." "Finish the brandy-and-water, Tom," said I, "and now we'll make a start for the brig noon is past, and the atmosphere cooler than it was." "Your very good health. Next time we splice the main-brace ashore, I hope it will be in Cuba," said Tom, finishing the contents of my flask and then becoming so jovial that he broke at once into an old sea-song, the last two verses of which were somewhat to this purpose: "I learned to splice, to reef and clew, To drink my grog with the best of the crew, And tell a merry story; And though I wasn't very big, Aloft I'd climb, nor care a fig To stand by my gun, or dance a jig, And all for Britain's glory! "When home I steered again I found My poor old mother run aground, And doleful was her story; She had been cheated by a lawyer elf, Who married her for her old dad's pelf, But spent it all, then hanged himself. Hooray for England's glory!" Just as Tom concluded this remarkable remark-able ditty with tones that made the volcanic grotto to echo to "glory," a voice that made us start exclaimed, close by us: "Bueno! Ha! Ha! Los Anglesos trarrachios!" On hearing this impertinent reflection reflec-tion on our sobriety we both looked up and saw what the next chapter will tell you. not to reveal our hiding place, shall return re-turn within four hours, bearing a fitting fit-ting ransom for both, else, so surely as the clock strikes, he who is left behind goes into the ventana of the mountain, where never did the longest sea line find a bottom not that I suppose any man was ever ass enough to try. Santos! San-tos! do -you hear?" he added, striking his musket-butt sharply on the rocks, when perceiving that Tom was ignorant igno-rant of all he said, and that I was stupefied stu-pefied by it. "Si, senor," said I, and translated it to Tom Lambourne, who twirled' hia tarry hat on his forefinger, stuck his quid in his cheep, slapped his thigh vigorously, and gave other nautical manifestations of extreme surprise and discomposure. "Ransom, Master Rodney?" he reiterated, re-iterated, "in tbe name of old Davy, who would ransom a poor Jack like me?" "The whole crew would table their month's wages on the capstan head-aye, head-aye, in a moment, Tom," I replied, with confidence. "I'm sure they would, and the captain cap-tain and Master Hislop, too, for the matter o' that, rather than poor shipmates ship-mates should come to harm; but" "As for me," said I, with growing confidence, "I am, as you said, senores, only the page de escoba." (To be continued.) the morning formed a portion of the great Peak. And now we became sensible sen-sible of a strange sound and a strange odor pervading all the place. Through a rent in the rocky roof of the grotto there fell a clear, bright stream of sunlight, that revealed the terrors of the place toward which our captors dragged us. On one side there yawned a vast black fissure or chasm, in the somber masses of obsidian and red blocks of lava which composed the floor of that horrid cavern; and from this fissure there ascended, and doubtless still ascends as-cends at times, a hot, sulphurous steam, which rendered breathing difficult dif-ficult and induced an inclination to sneeze. From the depth of that hideous chasm, the profundity of which no mortal eye could .leasure, and no human hu-man being could contemplate without awe and terror, we beard a strange, buzzing sound, as if from the bowels of the inner earth, far heaven alone knows how far down below. In fact, we were upon the verge of one of those natural spiracles which the natives term "the nostrils," or avenues ave-nues through which the hot vapors of that tremendous Piton ascend; and the buzzing sound that made our hearts shrink, we scarcely knew why, was caused by some volcanic throe at the bottom of the mountain, whose base is many a mile below the waters of the sea. The fissure was also twelve feet broad, and across it there lay a plank, forming a species of bridge. Two of our captors crossed, and then ordered us to follow them. I followed like one in a dream; hut CHAPTER IX. Dangerous Compauy. Behind us stood eight fellows, five of whom had muskets, and three heavy bludgeons. They were apparently Spanish seafaring men; but whether contrabandistas of the lowest class, a portion of a slaver's crew, or merely mere-ly drunken brawlers, we could not at first determine. However, they soon made us aware that robbery was their object, and that they were in no way averse to a little homicide if we interfered inter-fered with their plans in the least. Some had their coarse, but glossy my heart was chilled by a terror so deadly that I had no power or thought of resistance. My first fear was that the plank might be trundled from under our feet, and that we would be launched into the blark abyss below; but such was not the object of these Spaniards, as Tom and I were permitted to pass in safety. The remainder of the thieves followed, fol-lowed, and we found ourselves in another an-other grotto, the roof of which was covered by stalactites, that glittered like gothic pendants of alabaster in the light that fell from the upper fissure, which formed a natural window, and through it we could see the thin, white steam ascending and curling In the sunshine. Now, supposing that they had us in perfect security, our captors proceeded proceed-ed to hold a consultation as to what they should do with us; and imagining imagin-ing that we were both ignorant of their language, or, what is more probable, caring little whether we knew it or not, they canvassed the most terrible resolutions with perfect coolness and freedom of speech. and intensely black hair confined by nets or cauls; others had only Barcelona Bar-celona handkerchiefs round their heads. The spots of blood upon these, together with several patches and discolored dis-colored eyes, showed us that these j modern Iberians had been fighting ! among themselves. Their attire, which consisted only of red or blue shirts and dirty canvas trousers, was rather dilapidated; but something of the picturesque pic-turesque was imparted to it by the sashes of glaring red and yellow wor-j wor-j sted which girt their waists, and in ! which they had long knives stuck conspicuously. con-spicuously. By their bearing, their dark glaring eyes, their muscular figures, their bare arms, chest and feet, their bronzed, sallow and ugly visages and more than all by their rags, which were redolent red-olent of garlic and coarse tobacco. It was evident that we had fallen into unpleasant society. Several had silver rings in their ears, and on the bare chest of one I saw a crucifix marked either with ink or gunpowder. These fellows had come from the inner in-ner or back part of the cavern, where they had evidently been observing us for some time before they so suddenly appeared. "Acqu'ardiente." said one, approvingly, approv-ingly, as he applied his fierce, hooked nose to my empty flack, and then placed plac-ed it in his pocket. A second snatched away my courier-bag, and a third appropriated ap-propriated my telescope, which he stuck in his sash. Taking up a stone which lay at hand, I was about to hurl it at the head 'of the latter when the muzzle of a cocked musket pointed to my breast, and the butt of snother applied ap-plied roughly to my back, admonished me that discretion was the better part of valor. 'El page de escoba ha. ha!" (the cabin boy), said one contemptuously, as he examined my attire a smart blue jacket, with gilt anchor buttons, which Hislop had given me. My porte-monnaie, porte-monnaie, which contained only a few shillings, and my gold watch, a present pres-ent given to me by my mother when I went to Eton, were soon taken from CHAPTER X. The Ventana. Tom Lambourne's face wore somewhat some-what of a blanched hue, through which the stripes of his tattoing seemed seem-ed blacker than ever. A severe cut on his forehead, from which the blood was oozing, did not add to his personal per-sonal appearance. He scarcely knew a word of Spanish, but seemed instinctively instinc-tively aware that we had fallen into hands nearly as dangerous as his former for-mer acquaintances, the Mussolongos, for he said: "Master Rodney. I fear we have run our last knot off the log-line, and our sandglass won't run again, unless heaven gives the order to turn. Yet. if I could but get one of these muskets, mus-kets, to have a shot at the rascally rargo-pudd'ers before it's all over with us, I would be content. As it is. I am all over blood, from clew to earring, and they have well-nigh choked me by shaking a o.uid down my throat." |