have happened to me if a sea-captain had not come and proffered his assistance.”
“A sea-captain!” she exclaimed; “and had he a flat face and a broken nose?”
“Indeed he had,” replied Jonathan.
“That,” said the lady, “must have been Captain Keitt’s pirate partner—Captain Willitts, of The Bloody Hand. He was doubtless spying upon the Portuguese.”
“He induced me,” said Jonathan, “to carry the two bodies down to the wharf. Having inveigled me there—where, I suppose, he thought no one could interfere—he assaulted me, and endeavored to take the ivory ball away from me. In my efforts to escape we both fell into the water, and he, striking his head upon the edge of the wharf, was first stunned and then drowned.”
“Thank God!” cried the lady, with a transport of fervor, and clasping her jewelled hands together. “At last I am free of those who have heretofore persecuted me and threatened my very life itself! You have asked to behold my face; I will now show it to you! Heretofore I have been obliged to keep it concealed lest, recognizing me, my enemies should have slain me.” As she spoke she drew aside her veil, and disclosed to the vision of our hero a countenance of the most extraordinary and striking beauty. Her luminous eyes were like those of a Jawa, and set beneath exquisitely arched and pencilled brows. Her forehead was like lustrous ivory and her lips like rose-leaves. Her hair, which was as soft as the finest silk, was fastened up in masses of ravishing abundance. “I am,” said she, “the daughter of that unfortunate Captain Keitt, who, though weak and a pirate, was not so wicked, I would have you know, as he has been painted. He would, doubtless, have been an honest man had he not been led astray by the villain Hunt, who so nearly compassed your own destruction. He returned to this island before his death, and made me the sole heir of all that great fortune which he had gathered—perhaps not by the most honest means—
