384 THE RED TARTANE. 



all, even the bleeding, for the good news you have just communi- 

 cated. By my mother's soul, I would freely give the eight years' 

 pay Ferdinand owes me, to see this damned rover on his knees in 

 the condemned chapel, fettered hand and foot ! Many a time, when 

 giving him chase in the guarda-costas, have I almost forsworn my 

 saint, whilst tacking after this imp of darkness, for it is always in the 

 roughest weather he puts to sea ; and though our vessel would roll 

 about, dashed over continually by the waves, his seemed to bound 

 and glide over the water !" 



" Santa Carmen !" exclaimed an attentive listener, " I would wager 

 this new pair of buckles, that if the rover put his finger in a vessel of 

 holy water, the blessed liquid would bubble and boil, as if red-hot 

 iron had been plunged in it." 



" Let him but once be seized," said Flores, " and I will make an 

 offering to the Virgin of a new mantle and ring." 



" May Heaven grant it !" said a bystander, " and I promise San 

 Francisco to make my servant sleep on the bare stones, and eat no- 

 thing but boiled lentils for nine days." 



" And I," cried a cattle-dealer, " I consent to give two of my best 

 calves to the holy fathers of San Juan, if they will but promise to 

 punish this miscreant, by pouring molten lead in his eyes. By San 

 Pedro, I do not wish the death of the sinner, but justice must be 

 satisfied in some way. If this cousin of Satan contented himself with 

 a little contraband dealing, one might still be able to buy a trifle of 

 his merchandize, after exorcising it; but the wretch pillages the 

 women who live near the coast, carries off our daughters, and commits 

 profanation in our chapels. Even lately, the statue of San Ildefonso 

 was found, with a mariner's cap upon his head, and a long pipe 

 stuck in his mouth. By the seven pains of our Lady, such abomi- 

 nations announce some great scourge." 



" Why," observed the mariner, " does not his excellency the go- 

 vernor of Cadiz send a good frigate to put an end to these horrors ; for 

 as to the coast-guard, they fly the moment they perceive the bowsprit 

 of this cursed Tartane." 



" What is most singular," said the cattle-dealer, in a low voice, 

 and smiling maliciously, " is, that Pedrillo, my goatherd, assured me 

 lie had seen a boat from the rover's vessel run in among the rocks 

 near the convent of San Juan, and that " 



" And that " exclaimed impatiently his hearers, with almost 



one voice. 



" And that the accursed himself had entered the holy place/' 



" Jesus ! Holy Virgin ! Santa Carman !" burst involuntarily 

 from the listeners, as they rapidly made the sign of the cross. 



" But the holy fathers, how did they bear this abomination ?" de- 

 manded Flores, with a submissive air. 



" Ah ! there it is !" and the intercolutor half closed his eyes, and 

 again smiled maliciously. 



Notwithstanding the great danger incurred by meddling with the 

 affairs of the priesthood, the company would perhaps have com- 

 menced a discussion upon this subject, had not their attention been 

 arrested by the sudden entrance of a stranger, who, perceiving the 



