human
Notwithstanding the advice of my friends I made arrangements for an immediate return to Matanzas, but the day before my intended departure the Paragon arrived from that port; and I learned from her officers that Don Pedro was closely confined, awaiting his trial for the murder of Count ----, the result of which would be, without doubt, against him. Clara, believing the general report of my death, had entered the Ursuline Convent to begin her novitiate; and I was told that if I was to be seen in Matanzas, the _garrote_, or chain-gang, was all that I could expect. Your father then told me that if I would consent to accompany Captain Hopkins, he would sail in my place to Matanzas, and do his utmost for his nephew and niece. I could not help but see the wisdom of this arrangement, and acceded to it. We sailed from Boston to Stockholm, from thence to Rotterdam, and from thence to Batavia. A freight offering for Canton, we went to that port, and from thence came home, after an absence of two years and a half. In the meantime Don Pedro had been tried, and sentenced to death; but by the exertions of your father, who wrought faithfully in his behalf, his sentence was commuted, first to twenty, and then to twelve years in the gallies, or, as it is in Cuba, the chain-gang. His efforts to see Clara, in order to disabuse her mind of the belief of my death, was abortive; and she, after finishing her year as a novice, took the veil--and she is now a nun in the Ursuline Convent at Matanzas, while her noble brother is a slave, with felons, laboring with the cursed chain-gang in the same city to which we are bound. Now, boys, do you wonder that when I found myself under orders to go again to the scene of all this misery I was affected, and that a melancholy has possessed me which has increased as the voyage has progressed? I did determine at first that I would leave the ship at Gibralter and go home, but I dreaded to part with my shipmates. I shall not go ashore while we lay at Matanzas for many reasons, though I should incur no risk, I think. Everybody who knew me in Matanzas believes me dead long since; and six years of seafaring life in every climate, changes one strangely. But the wind has veered again and freshened considerably since I began my yarn. It looks some as if we might catch a norther by way of variety. Brewster will have to shorten sail in his watch, I reckon, and maybe keep the lead going if we make much leeway. Come, Bill, it is 4 o'clock, and a little past.
gpt
Eight bells, there, for'ard! shouted the third mate.
human
Call the watch! Rouse Brewster, Frank, will you?