HE

BUCCANEER.

A TALE.

BY

MRS. S. C. HALL.

Stay! methinks I see
A person in yond cave. Who should that bee?
I know her ensignes now--'tis Chivalrie
Possess'd with sleepe, dead as a lethargie;
If any charme will wake her, 'tis the name
Of our Meliadus! I'll use his Fame.

BEN JONSON.

REVISED BY THE AUTHOR.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET:
BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH;
J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.
1840.

THE BUCCANEER.

CHAPTER I.

With roomy decks, her guns of mighty strength,
Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves,
Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length,
She seems a sea wasp flying on the waves.

DRYDEN.

It was between the hours of ten and twelve on a fine night of February,
in the year sixteen hundred and fifty-six, that three men moored a light
skiff in a small bay, overshadowed by the heavy and sombre rocks that
distinguish the Isle of Shepey from other parts along the coast of Kent,
the white cliffs of which present an aspect at once so cheerful and so
peculiar to the shores of Britain. The quiet sea seemed, in the murky
light, like a dense and motionless mass, save when the gathering clouds
passed from the brow of the waning moon, and permitted its beams to
repose in silver lines on its undulating bosom.

It was difficult to account for the motive that could have induced any
mariner to land upon so unpropitious a spot, hemmed in as it was on
every side, and apparently affording no outlet but that by which they
had entered--the trackless and illimitable ocean. Without a moment's
deliberation, however, the steersman, who had guided his boat into the
creek, sprang lightly to the shore: another followed; while the third,
folding himself in the capacious cloak his leader had thrown off,
resumed his place, as if resolved to take his rest, at least for a time.

"Little doubt of our having foul weather, master," observed the younger
of the two, in a half querulous, half positive tone, as standing on a
huge bank of sea-weed, he regarded first the heavens, and then the
earth, with the scrutinising gaze of one accustomed to pry into their
mysteries. His companion made no answer, but commenced unrolling a rich
silk scarf, that had enveloped his throat, and twisting it into loose
folds, passed it several times around his waist--having previously
withdrawn from a wide leathern belt that intervened between