The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, and His Man, Mark Antony O'TooleMaxwell, W. H. (William Hamilton)
General
The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, and His Man, Mark Antony O'Toole
Maxwell, W. H. (William Hamilton)
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Monday came, and the diamond-merchant presented himself punctually at
Don Manuel’s door. He was alone, and his friend the flower-dealer no
longer accompanied him. He knocked, but admission was refused; and
the porter informed him, that his lady declined that day receiving any
visitors. There was a strange confusion visible through the whole of
the admiral’s establishment; and servants hurried to and fro, with
an anxiety apparent in their looks, like that of men to whom some
surprising occurrence had been recently made known. In a few hours,
the cause of this commotion was whispered over the city, and created
universal astonishment. The admiral’s fair daughter, Camilla, who in
a few days was to have become the betrothed of Heaven, had, on the
preceding night, eloped from her father’s mansion, and not a trace
of the beautiful fugitive eould be discovered. The day passed, and no
tidings were heard of the lost one: and the most extensive inquiries
produced but little information. It was ascertained that a fishing-canoe
had observed a felucca cross the bar, and, at an unusual time of tide,
stand out to sea--and a stranger, whose brilliant appearance occasioned
a sensation in the city, had suddenly departed from the hotel where
he lodged, accompanied by his black domestic. Months succeeded
days--Camilla was never heard of; and many and marvellous were the
surmises as to the means and manner, by which the lovely daughter of Don
Manuel de Cordova had been so mysteriously spirited away.
Three years slipped away. Don Manuel de Cordova was gathered to his
fathers; and after the briefest period of mourning, which a decent
respect to the memory of one who had bequeathed her his whole fortune,
would allow, the young relict had bestowed her widowed hand on a wild
and dissipated grandee. Of the lost Camilla no tidings were ever heard,
and her strange disappearance remained as much a mystery as it was on
the morning after it occurred.
Another event had caused immense joy along the coast. A celebrated
rover, which for years had infested the neighbouring seas, had been
driven on shore and destroyed by an English cruiser. Indeed it was full
time that the Flambeau’s predatory career should be terminated. While
she had continued under the command of a person who called himself
Ramirez, her spoliations were restricted to what is considered allowable
to vessels occupied in free trading, and no acts of violence had ever
been permitted. But for some unknown cause that captain had mysteriously
disappeared, and under his successor, the rover became a regular
pirate; and, from the extent of her depredations, her destruction became
indispensable. In effecting this, most of her lawless crew had fallen,
and the remainder were driven into the woods, where, as it was hoped and
expected, they would be speedily arrested and brought to that justice
which so long they had managed to evade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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