tortoises, with a pile of dollars he had hoarded from his mercantile
operations were secured on the spot. But while the too vindictive
smugglers were busy destroying his hut and garden, Oberlus makes his
escape into the mountains, and conceals himself there in impenetrable
recesses, only known to himself, till the ship sails, when he ventures
back, and by means of an old file which he sticks into a tree, contrives
to free himself from his handcuffs.

Brooding among the ruins of his hut, and the desolate clinkers and
extinct volcanoes of this outcast isle, the insulted misanthrope now
meditates a signal revenge upon humanity, but conceals his purposes.
Vessels still touch the Landing at times; and by-and-by Oberlus is
enabled to supply them with some vegetables.

Warned by his former failure in kidnapping strangers, he now pursues a
quite different plan. When seamen come ashore, he makes up to them like
a free-and-easy comrade, invites them to his hut, and with whatever
affability his red-haired grimness may assume, entreats them to drink
his liquor and be merry. But his guests need little pressing; and so,
soon as rendered insensible, are tied hand and foot, and pitched among
the clinkers, are there concealed till the ship departs, when, finding
themselves entirely dependent upon Oberlus, alarmed at his changed
demeanor, his savage threats, and above all, that shocking blunderbuss,
they willingly enlist under him, becoming his humble slaves, and Oberlus
the most incredible of tyrants. So much so, that two or three perish
beneath his initiating process. He sets the remainder--four of them--to
breaking the caked soil; transporting upon their backs loads of loamy
earth, scooped up in moist clefts among the mountains; keeps them on the
roughest fare; presents his piece at the slightest hint of insurrection;
and in all respects converts them into reptiles at his feet--plebeian
garter-snakes to this Lord Anaconda.

At last, Oberlus contrives to stock his arsenal with four rusty
cutlasses, and an added supply of powder and ball intended for his
blunderbuss. Remitting in good part the labor of his slaves, he now
approves himself a man, or rather devil, of great abilities in the way
of cajoling or coercing others into acquiescence with his own ulterior
designs, however at first abhorrent to them. But indeed, prepared for
almost any eventual evil by their previous lawless life, as a sort of
ranging Cow-Boys of the sea, which ha