Chapter Fifty One.
A short chapter and a miserable one—The less that is said of it the better.
I had been living in the plantation nearly three months. My little wife, for such I held her to be, had made much progress in her education—more in my affection she could not. I had already put her into joining hand; and I began to be as proud of her dawning intellect as I was of her person and of her love. I had renounced my country, and, in good faith, I had intended to have held by her for ever; and, when I should find myself in a country where marriage with one born in slavery was looked upon as no opprobrium, I had determined that the indissoluble ceremony should be legally performed. To do all this I was in earnest; but, events, or destiny, or by whatever high-sounding term we may call those occurrences which force us on in a path we wish not to tread, ruled it fearfully otherwise.
I religiously abstained from looking towards the ship, or even the sea; yet, I plainly saw, by the alternations of hope, and joy, and fear, on Josephine’s sweet countenance, that something of the most vital importance was about to take place. They could not conceal from me that parties of men had been searching for me, because, for a few days, I had been in actual hiding with Josephine, three or four miles up the woody mountain. I must hurry over all this: for the recollection of it, even at this great lapse of time, is agonising. The night before the Eos sailed she would not sleep—her incessant tears, the tremulous energy with which clasped me and held me for hours, all told the secret that I wished not to know. All that night she watched, as a mother watches a departing and first-born child—tearfully—anxiously—but, overcome with fatigue, and the fierce contention of emotions, as the morning dawned, her face drooped away from mine, her clasping arms gradually relaxed, and, murmuring my name with a blessing, she slept. Did she ever sleep again? May God pardon me, I know not!
I hung over her, and watched her, almost worshipping, until two hours after sunrise. I blessed her as she lay there in all her tranquil beauty, fervently, and, instead of my prayers, I repeated over and over again my oath, that I would never desert her. But some devil, in order to spread the ashes of bitterness through the long path of my after-life, suggested to me that now, as the frigate had sailed for some time, there could be no danger in taking one last look at her; indeed, the thought of doing so took the shape of a duty.
I stole out of bed, and crept softly round to the front of the house. The place where the gallant ship had rode at anchor for so many weeks was vacant—all was still and lonely. I walked on to a higher spot; and, far distant among the sinuosities of the romantic entrance to the harbour, my eye caught, for a moment, her receding pennant. I, therefore, concluded that everything was safe—that I was cut off and for ever, from my country.
A little qualm of remorse passed through my bosom, and then I was exceeding glad. The morning was fresh, and the air invigorating, and I determined to walk down to the beautiful minutely-sanded beach, and enjoy the refreshment of the sea-breeze just sweeping gently over the bay. To do this, I had to pass over a shoulder of land to my left. I gained the beach, and stood upon it for some minutes with folded arms. This particular walk had been so long debarred to me, that I now enjoyed it the more. I was upon the point of turning round, and seeking the nest where I had left my dove sleeping in conscious security, when, to my horror, I beheld the Eos’ pinnace, full-manned and double-banked, the wave foaming up her cutwater, and roaring under her sixteen oars, rapidly round the rocky hummock that formed the eastern horn of the little bay. Her prow soon tore up the sand; and the third-lieutenant, a master’s mate, and the officer of marines, with four privates, leaped ashore immediately.
For a few moments I was paralysed with terror, and then, suddenly springing forward, I ran at the top of my speed. I need not say that my pursuers gave chase heartily. I had no other choice but to run on straight before me; and that, unfortunately, was up a rocky, rugged side of a steep hill, that rose directly from the beach, covered with that abominable vegetable, or shrub, the prickly pear. I was in full view; and, being hailed and told that I should be fired upon if I did not bring to, in the space of a short three minutes, before I was out of breath, I was in the hands of my captors—a prisoner.
I prayed—I knelt—I wept. It was useless. I have scarcely the courage to write what then took place, it was so fearful—it was so hideous. Bounding down the hill, in her night-dress, her long black hair streaming like a meteor behind her, and her naked feet, usually so exquisitely white, covered with blood, came Josephine, shrieking “Ralph, Ralph!” Her voice seemed to stab my bosom like an actual knife. Behind her came running her father, and a number of negro men and women. Before she could reach me, they had flung me into the stern-sheets of the boat.
“Shove off! shove off!” shouted the lieutenant; and the boat was immediately in motion. Like a convicted felon, or a murderer taken in the fact, I buried my craven head in my knees, and shut my eyes. I would not have looked back for kingdoms. But I could not, or did not, think of preventing myself from hearing. The boat had not pulled ten yards from the beach, when I heard a splash behind us, and simultaneous cries of horror from the boat’s crew and those on shore; among which the agonised voice of the heartbroken father rose shrilly, as he exclaimed, “Josephine, my child!” I looked up for a moment, but dared not look round; and I saw every man in the boat dashing away the tears from his eyes with one hand, as he reluctantly pulled his oar with the other.
“Give way! give way!” roared the lieutenant, stamping violently against the grating at his feet. “Give way! or, by God, she’ll overtake us!”
The poor girl was swimming after me.
“Rattlin,” said Selby, stooping down and whispering in my ear—“Rattlin, I can’t stand it; if it was not as much as my life was worth, I would put you on shore directly.” I could answer him only by a long convulsive shudder. The horrible torment of those moments!
Then ascended the loud howling curses of the negroes behind us. The seamen rose up upon their oars, and, with a few violent jerks, the pinnace shot round the next point of land, and the poor struggler in the waters was seen no more. Tidings never after came to me of her. I left her struggling in the waters of the ocean. My first love, and my last—my only one.
I was taken on board stupefied. I was led up the side like a sick man. No one reproached me; no one spoke to me. I became physically, as well as mentally, ill. I went to my hammock with a stern feeling of joy, hoping soon to be lashed up in it, and find my grave in the deep blue sea. At first, my only consolation was enacting over and over again all the happy scenes with Josephine; but, as they invariably terminated in one dreadful point, this occupation became hateful. I then endeavoured to blot the whole transaction from my memory—to persuade myself that the events had not been real—that I had dreamed them—or read them long ago in some old book. But the mind is not so easily cheated—remorse not so soon blinded.