The surgeon now drew his chair closer to that of his patient, and became less reserved. The latter soon understood that it had been decided by the pirates that upon his recovery he should join them or be shot upon the cliff. The blood of Fitzgerald boiled in his veins at the bare proposal of the Bucanier, but before he gave his anger words, his lovely Creole approached with a package of New York dailies, taken the week previous from an outward bound brig. Forgetting every thing else in his desire to hear from his native land, he opened the first paper that met his eye, and read the following:—“Arrived, the United States Frigate ——, with His Britannic Majesty’s Ship —— of forty-four guns, in tow, as a prize. The action lasted thirty minutes, when the British frigate struck her flag. Capt. —— immediately left the frigate and proceeded to Washington with the enemy’s flag. The official account of this gallant action will be given to-morrow. Suffice it to say that every officer and man did his duty, and that promotion, and the thanks of a grateful country await the victors.” In another paper he read a list of promotions in the navy, and his own dismissal from the service. The marriage list now caught his eye, and he read,—“Married in Belleview, on the 1st instant, by the Reverend Mr. Smell Fungus, Count Frederick Ampisand, of Hesse Cassel, Germany, to Miss Mary Howard, the only daughter of Col. John Howard, of the revolutionary army. “Love is the silken cord that binds Two willing hearts together.” Every word of this paragraph remained like an impression from types of fire upon his melancholy brain. “Doctor,” said Fitzgerald, throwing down the paper, while the blood oozed from his scarcely-healed wound,—“tell your leaders that henceforth I am with them body and soul. The victim of circumstance—the sport of the world—a cork floating upon the stream of time.—I will be dreaded, if I cannot be loved.” The morning came, and Fitzgerald was introduced to the bucaniers in their strong hold. Bold and generous, two qualities that always sail in company, he became a universal favorite at the melee, and o’er the bowl; and in the course of a short time, he paced along the weather quarter of the gun brig, King Fisher,—“the monarch of her peopled deck.” It was a beautiful summer’s night. The sun had sunk in a dense cloud bank behind the Bahamas; and the small red bow in the northwest, accompanied by a hollow sound, as though cannons had been fired far down beneath the surface of the ocean, gave evidence of the near approach of a norther.