Martin Conisby

"A smoke!" cried I, leaping up. "Ha, yes--yes!" And off went I, running; but reaching Deliverance I saw there was no need for signal of mine, since on the cliff above a fire burned already, sending up huge columns of thick smoke very plain to be seen from afar, and beside this fire Joanna staring seaward beneath her hand. And looking whither she looked, I saw the ship so much nearer that I might distinguish her lower courses. Thus I stood, watching the vessel grow upon my sight, very slowly and by degrees, until it was evident she had seen the smoke and was standing in for the island. Once assured of this, I was seized of a passion of joy; and bethinking me of all she might mean to me and of the possibility that one might be aboard her whose sweet eyes even now gazed from her decks upon this lonely island, my heart leapt whiles ship and sea swam on my sight and I grew blinded by stinging tears. And now I paced to and fro upon the sand in a fever of longing and with my hungry gaze turned ever in the one direction.

As the time dragged by, my impatience grew almost beyond enduring; but on came the ship, slow but sure, nearer and nearer until I could discern shroud and spar and rope, the guns that yawned from her high, weather-beaten side, the people who crowded her decks. She seemed a great ship, heavily armed and manned, and high upon her towering poop lolled one in a vivid scarlet jacket.

I was gazing upon her in an ecstacy, straining my eyes for the flutter of a petticoat upon her lofty quarter-deck, when I heard Don Federigo hail me faintly, and glancing about, espied him leaning against an adjacent rock.

"Alas, Señor," says he, "I know yon ship by her looks--aye, and so doth the Señorita--see yonder!" Now glancing whither he pointed, I beheld Joanna pacing daintily along the reef, pausing ever and anon to signal with her arm; then, as the ship went about to bear up towards the reef, from her crowded decks rose a great shouting and halloo, a hoarse clamour drowned all at once in the roar of great guns, and up to the main fluttered a black ancient; and beholding this accursed flag, its grisly skull and bones, I cast me down on the sands, my high hopes and fond expectations 'whelmed in a great despair.

But as I lay thus was a gentle touch on my bowed head and in my ear Don Federigo's voice: "Alas, good my friend, and doth Hope die for you likewise? Then do I grieve indeed. But despair not, for in the cave yonder be two swords; go fetch them, I pray, for I am over-weak."