Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/139

126 “By a Whitechapel and Blackwall omnibus,” she innocently answered, “as far as the docks, and from Blackwall in a West India ship. I was going to Jamaica to marry my cousin, who is doing very well out there, accompanied by my maiden aunt; who, by-the-bye, was the plague of my life. The ship was taken by the Don’s schooner, and the crew escaped, leaving my aunt and me behind. Well, do you know (I can’t help laughing), the Don traded my aunt to a Yankee, who wanted a governess, for two bullocks and a bale of tobacco, and brought me on here, and as you know, intended to marry me.”

“Never!” I remarked, resealing our contract. “But how about the cousin?”

“Oh! I’ll throw him over, of course; it is the fashion to do so in high life, and I am a Princess here, you know,” she added smiling; “but now to business.”

We set quietly to work, and secured all the arms and ammunition, and hid them in a cavity of some rocks near the house. The key of the sailors’ fetters was given into my keeping, and the only thing which remained to be done, was to abide the result of to-morrow’s enterprise.

The Don returned in the morning in high feather. We chatted and talked merrily all day on his approaching marriage, and I led him on after dinner till he was three parts intoxicated. I insisted on having another bottle, and La Principessa, who entered the room, seconded me, and rallied him cheerfully on the propriety of making merry before his marriage. My first object was gained, as I had stupified him with drink just as the night set in. “Let us carry your master up to bed, Pompey,” I said, “and I will sit by him.” We laid him on the bed, and he snored heavily. I signalled to La Principessa, who was outside, to come in, and having taken the precaution to tie his hands and feet, I left her sitting by him, with a loaded revolver, with instructions to blow his brains out if he threatened to make a noise.

I obtained the keys of all the gates, and flew rather than ran to the hut where my poor comrades were. At my appearance they thought I was a ghost, but two bottles of rum which I produced assured them that I was a friendly spirit at any rate. Their shackles were soon undone, and the whole party arrived safely at the spot where the stand of arms was hidden.

Leaving the majority of the party outside the house to secure the servants, the quartermaster, the boatswain, two seamen, and myself, well armed, entered. We went at once to the Don’s room. We found him wide awake foaming at the mouth with rage, and his guardian angel holding the pistol to his head.

“So you wish to be married, do you,” said the boatswain, squirting a shower of tobacco juice into the Don’s eye, “so you shall be in a moment,” and he pulled down one of the silk bell-ropes, and unravelling it, constructed a very artistic “cat.”