THE WRECKED PIRATEIn the year 1813 a piratical schooner was wrecked upon one of the desolate Keys of the Bahamas. The captain alone, of a crew of ninety men, reached shore upon a broken spar. For several months he subsisted upon shell-fish and tropical fruits, with which the island abounded, eked out by some provisions saved from the wreck.While in this solitude, feelings which had long slumbered were awakened in his breast, and his heart was melted to repentance.After long months of waiting, he was rescued by a passing vessel bound for Spain. A pardon was at length obtained for him from the Spanish government, and he ever after lived a Christian life. But what thus wrought upon the heart of the savage, hardened in crime and blood? “Fear,” I hear you exclaim, “heightened by that terrible solitude; death groans and piteous entreaties for mercy that haunted each lonely ravine, and moanedin the winds of midnight!” Oh, no; it was but the evening song of the turtle-doves which built their nests among the mangrove bushes that fringed the borders of the creeks.Behold him as he stands! that man of brawl and battle, his stern features unmoved as the cliffs beside him, gazing upon the bodies of the companions of many a bloody fray, tossed amid the fragments of broken timbers in the surf at his feet. What a mingling of the elements of agony and fear!—the abyss of ocean, the lonely wreck, the livid bodies of the dead, the desolate shore, himself cut off from all human fellowship, a stinging conscience within, and the eternal God above him, whose lightnings play around his head. All these move him not. But hark! As those bird-notes, so sweetly mournful, strike upon his ear, familiar through many an hour of careless boyhood in his early home, the blood flushes to his cheek and lip; the sweat bedews his brow. Those soft notes recall days of innocence, ere blood had stained his hand, and remorse was gnawing at his heartstrings. The low notes of a mother’s prayer thrill, like some forgotten melody, upon his ear. Again her lips are pressed to his as when she kissedhim for the last time, upon his father’s threshold. Tears are streaming down those cheeks, bronzed by burning suns and furrowed by seafoam and tempest; and that voice, whose stern tones had risen above the roar of battle and roused the seaman from his slumbers like the trump of doom, grows all tremulous with emotion as he cries, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
In the year 1813 a piratical schooner was wrecked upon one of the desolate Keys of the Bahamas. The captain alone, of a crew of ninety men, reached shore upon a broken spar. For several months he subsisted upon shell-fish and tropical fruits, with which the island abounded, eked out by some provisions saved from the wreck.
While in this solitude, feelings which had long slumbered were awakened in his breast, and his heart was melted to repentance.
After long months of waiting, he was rescued by a passing vessel bound for Spain. A pardon was at length obtained for him from the Spanish government, and he ever after lived a Christian life. But what thus wrought upon the heart of the savage, hardened in crime and blood? “Fear,” I hear you exclaim, “heightened by that terrible solitude; death groans and piteous entreaties for mercy that haunted each lonely ravine, and moanedin the winds of midnight!” Oh, no; it was but the evening song of the turtle-doves which built their nests among the mangrove bushes that fringed the borders of the creeks.
Behold him as he stands! that man of brawl and battle, his stern features unmoved as the cliffs beside him, gazing upon the bodies of the companions of many a bloody fray, tossed amid the fragments of broken timbers in the surf at his feet. What a mingling of the elements of agony and fear!—the abyss of ocean, the lonely wreck, the livid bodies of the dead, the desolate shore, himself cut off from all human fellowship, a stinging conscience within, and the eternal God above him, whose lightnings play around his head. All these move him not. But hark! As those bird-notes, so sweetly mournful, strike upon his ear, familiar through many an hour of careless boyhood in his early home, the blood flushes to his cheek and lip; the sweat bedews his brow. Those soft notes recall days of innocence, ere blood had stained his hand, and remorse was gnawing at his heartstrings. The low notes of a mother’s prayer thrill, like some forgotten melody, upon his ear. Again her lips are pressed to his as when she kissedhim for the last time, upon his father’s threshold. Tears are streaming down those cheeks, bronzed by burning suns and furrowed by seafoam and tempest; and that voice, whose stern tones had risen above the roar of battle and roused the seaman from his slumbers like the trump of doom, grows all tremulous with emotion as he cries, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”