cabin. She sang, too, some little sad songs
with a voice which vibrated upon my ear like the notes of an Aeolian harp
sighing in the night wind. _Dios!_ how I regretted then and afterward
that I did not have a cabinet piano!"

"Presented to you," suggested the doctor.

"Yes, presented to me, so that she might have touched the keys with
those ivory and rose-tipped fingers.

"So the time passed, the schooner flying on under whole sails, the wind
about two points free, and the weather as fine as silk. It was the
fourth evening, I think, after parting with the Oporto trader that I
induced my fair passenger to come on deck and take a little breath of
sea-air. You will observe, _caballeros_, that I did not make this
suggestion in the daytime, because the 'Centipede's' crew, you know,
were rather numerous, and some of them not so handsome in point of
personal looks as ladies at all times care to behold. Besides, there
were certain things about the decks--racks of cutlasses, lockers of
musketry along the rail, and a long brass twelve-pounder, which is not
altogether hidden by the boat, you know, and might have given rise to a
little curiosity, or maybe suspicion, even in the mind of a girl, as to
our character, pursuits, and so forth, which I should have been puzzled
to answer. Therefore I chose a clear starlight night to pay my homage,
and accordingly I went below about four bells of the first watch to
escort the little lady to the deck. She was dressed, and waiting for me
in the cabin; and if I was so struck with her beauty when I first saw
her, my heart thumped now against my ribs like a volley of musket-balls
against an oak plank. She wore a black silk robe, such as Spanish women
wear at early mass, and around the back part of her head--where the hair
was gathered in a glossy knot, and secured by a gold bodkin--fell the
heavy folds of a black lace mantilla, the lower end fastened sash
fashion around her lithe waist. She stepped, too, like a queen on a pair
of slim, long, delicate feet, with arched ball and instep, as if she
were in command of the schooner.

"By my right arm!" exclaimed Captain Brand, shaking that member aloft in
a glorious fit of enthusiasm, "I am quite sure she had conquered me, and
that was more than half the battle!

"Well, I led her to the quarter-deck, where some cushions and flags had
been placed for her near the weather taffrail, and where she sat down.
The schooner was at the time under the two