THE
ISLAND PIRATE.
A TALE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID,
AUTHOR OF "BLUE DICK," "SCALP HUNTERS," ETC.
NEW YORK:
BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
BEADLE AND ADAMS,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
(P. N. No. 10.)
THE
ISLAND PIRATE.
CHAPTER I.
A PAYING PRISON.
Many long years have elapsed since I first set foot in the valleyof the Mississippi. I had strayed thither a young and enthusiastictraveler, with scarce any other aim than adventure.
I soon discovered that I had got into the very ground where such ataste could be gratified. Amid scenes of softness or sublimity, ortranquil solitude or stirring life—amid varied types of nationality,and strange contrasts of character—scarce a day passed without itsincident, nor week wanting in some episode worthy of remembrance. Manyof them have at least proved worthy of mine; and I now look back uponthem with that romantic interest by which the past often reflectsitself in the mirror of memory.
That I am about to record is of a mixed character—a drama in whichthere are scenes of pain as well as pleasure—both of real occurrence.
Whether interesting or no, they may be deemed improbable; though not bythose who have studied the social characteristics of the Mississippivalley at the period to which they refer—before the "Far West" hadcommenced receding from the great river, and its settlements hadrefused to give shelter to those outcasts of society, who own no lawbut that of the lex talionis, and no lawyer but Lynch.
Unlike most travelers through Mississippian territory, I entered itfrom the south—by the mouth of its main river—making my first stationin the city of New Orleans.
It was late in the spring when I arrived there. And soon after the redcross, beginning to show itself on the doors of the humbler dwellingsthat lay "swampward," warned me of the presence of that terribleepidemic, which there annually decimated the ranks of such strangers aswere compelled to make their summer sojourn in the place.
Taking the hint, I bade a temporary adieu to New Orleans, intending toreturn to it after the first frost in the "fall."
Straying northward, here and there halting as chance or capricedirected, I was at length carried into the Ohio and up the Cumberlandriver to the capital of Tennessee.
By this time the forest foliage had become tinged with red, and theleaf was beginning to fall. My stay, therefore, in the "City of Rocks,"though pleasant, was not prolonged; and I made preparations for leavingit: not by a steamboat, as I had come, but on horseback—a mode oftraveling I much preferred, as, in fact, the only one by which such acountry can be properly seen.
With a stout roadster between my thighs, and a valise buckled to thecroup behind me, I took the Franklin "pike," leading southward from thecity.
I contemplated a long ride—so long, that were I to state the distance,it might test the credulity of my reader; as it did that of a traveler,who shortly after overtook me.
I had made some three miles along the dusty pike, and was nearlyopposite a large pile of building, standing to the right of the road,when the traveler in question came gliding alongside.
He was upon a "pacer," and c