The Buccaneer - A Tale

Suddenly, a strong light, a fierce blaze, as if the ocean had thrown up

one immense pyramid of flame, to dispel the darkness and divide the

clouds, sprang into the heavens! and then a peal, loud as the straggling

thunder! The cliff shook beneath their feet--the sea-birds started from

their nests, and flew, and screamed, and wheeled in the air! From behind

the different points and crags along the shore rushed forth the

smugglers, who had lain to, watching the time when it would have been

prudent for them to put off their boats and join the ship, as Dalton had

directed. The old death-dresser forsook the corpse, and standing on the

highest crag, her long hair floating backwards on the breeze, her arms

tossing from the effects of terror and astonishment, looked like the

sibyl whose spells and orgies have distracted nature by some terrible

convulsion. The cliffs and strand at the moment formed a picture that

Salvator would have gloried in conveying to his canvass--the line of

coast now rising boldly from the ocean, each projecting point catching

the glaring blaze, and seeming itself on fire--the caverns overhung by

creeping plants, revelling in gorgeous colours from every changing light

that touched their beauties:--then the wild figures clasping by the

rocks, panting with terror and excitement--the sibyl on her

pinnacle--the gigantic frame of Roupall, rendered still more gigantic to

the eye by the position in which he stood, breathless, with the written

parchment in his hand, yet unable to move or direct Dalton's attention

to it. The Skipper, still like a monument of stone, but called to

animation by astonishment and dismay, while the light played with the

grace and brilliancy of lightning on the bright mountings of his

pistols. Still the flames towered brightly to the heavens, while each

fresh explosion separated their condensed effect, and sent a portion of

them higher in the clouds, or hissing over the variegated and sparkling

sea, which rolled to the shore in masses of glowing fire.

"Read! read!" at length exclaimed Roupall, thrusting the parchment into

the hand of the Buccaneer. "Read! read!" he repeated, for Dalton heeded

him not.

"Read what?" said the Skipper, in a voice which entered the heart of all

who heard it; "do I not read--do I not read--black, bitter, burning

treachery?--It is my own ship--I know every spar that flits like a

meteor through the air. My heart was never crushed till now."

"Read--I will read it, if I can," said Springall, who had joined the

party. With some difficulty he succeeded in making audible its contents.