THE ROBBER CHIEFTAIN.
| He was the mildest mannered man |
| That ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat; |
| With such true breeding of a gentleman, |
| You never could divine his real thought; |
| Pity he loved adventurous life's variety, |
| He was so great a loss to good society.—Byron. |
While the walls of the cavern seemed wheeling around Sybil, the robber captain calmly came up to her, lifted his hat, and said:
"Spirit of Fire, I am happy to welcome you to your own appropriate dwelling place. Behold!"
And he waved his hat around towards the stalactite walls and ceiling of the cavern, now burning, sparkling, blazing, in the reflected light of the candles.
"Death!" uttered Sybil, under her suspended breath.
"Yes, Death! I told you, Spirit, that Death and Fire were often allies! But now, as we are no longer masquerading, permit me, Mrs. Berners, to present myself to you as Captain Inconnu," he said, with another and a deeper bow.
"That name tells me nothing," replied Sybil.
"What name does more?" inquired the stranger; and then, without expecting an answer, he turned to Moloch, and said in his smoothest tones:
"Be so good as to give me this seat, sir."
But Sybil saw that the giant turned pale and trembled like the fabled mountain in labor, as he left the seat by her side, and slunk into another at some distance; and she felt far more fear of the graceful "Captain Inconnu," who now placed himself beside her, and behaved with so much deference, than she had felt of the brutal "Moloch," who had treated her with the rudest familiarity. And this fear was not at all modified by a whisper that reached her acute ears, from the man at whose side the giant had now seated himself.
"I could a' told you what you'd get, if you meddled wi' the Captain's gal! Now look out."
But the "Captain" conducted himself with the greatest courtesy towards his guest.
"Come here, Princess!" he said, addressing the girl, "come here and place yourself on the other side of this lady. If you are Princess, she is Queen."
The girl immediately came around and seated herself. And the master of the house helped his guest to the most delicate morsels of the viands before him.
Sybil, though in deadly fear of her gentlemanly attendant, accepted every one of his attentions with a smile. She knew poor child, to whom she was now obliged to pay court. Her one idea was her husband; her one want, to be reunited to him, at all risks or costs to liberty or life; and she knew that this man, the autocrat, as well as the Captain of his band, had the power to restore her to her husband, and so she exerted all her powers of pleasing to win his favor.
Poor Sybil! if she was rather ignorant of books, (for a gentleman's daughter,) she was still more ignorant of mankind. She might have learned something from the case of Rosa Blondelle, but she did not. And now no guardian spirit whispered to her:
"You saw how the blandishments of a beauty affected even your own true-hearted husband; and yet, with the best intentions, you are using the same sort of blandishments upon a brigand. What can you expect but evil?"
No; the voice of her guardian angel was silent; and the beautiful, honorable lady continued to smile on the robber captain, until his head was turned.
Near the conclusion of the feast, he filled a goblet to the brim with wine, and rising in his place, said:
"Fill high your glasses, men! Let us drink to the health of our new sovereign. Dethroned and outcast by the law, we will enthrone her and crown her the Queen of Outlaws! Fill to the brim with this best of wine. And mind, this cup is a pledge of amnesty to all offenders, of union among ourselves, and of devotion to our Queen!"
The toast was honored by full glasses and loud cheers. And none filled higher or cheered louder than the giant Moloch, who now felt himself secure from the captain's vengeance, by virtue of the general proclamation of amnesty.
The long-protracted feast came to an end at last.
The robber captain was not an impetuous brute like the giant Moloch. He was a refined and cultivated being, who could bide his time, and enjoy his happiness by anticipation.
So at the end of the supper, seeing that his guest was very weary, he signed to the girl to rise. And then he took the lady's hand, pressed it most respectfully to his lips, and placed it in that of the girl, saying:
"See your queen to her apartments, and serve her royally."
Poor Sybil! In her infatuation she smiled upon the brigand, with a look that deprived him of the last remnant of reason, and then she followed her conductor from the room.
The girl led the lady to the same cavern chamber where she had before slept, and then said:
"Listen to me. Satan is not himself to-night. Satan is in love. That is a more fatal intoxication than any produced by wine; and when the devil is drunk with love or wine, he is very dangerous. You must stay with me to-night."
"Your eyes are wide open, and as bright as stars! You are not sleepy at all," said the girl gazing upon Sybil's excited face.
"How can I be, when I slept so long to-day, and when I have so much to occupy my thoughts besides?" sighed Sybil.
"Do you wish to sleep?"
"Indeed I do; to sleep and forget."
"Here then," said the girl taking a full bag from a corner and drawing over it a clean pillow-case. "Here is a sack of dried hop-leaves. It is as soft as down, and soporific as opium. Put this under your head and you will find it to be a magic cushion that will convey you at once to the land of Nod."
Sybil took her advice and soon grew calm, and soon after lost all consciousness of her troubles in a deep repose, which lasted until morning.
The glinting of the sun's rays through the crevices in the cave, and the sparkling of the stalactites on the walls, first awakened Sybil. She saw that her hostess was already up and dressed; but had not left the cave. She was in truth setting the place in order after her own toilet, and, laying out fresh towels for that of her guest.
Sybil watched her in silence some time, and then spoke:
"I have been with you twenty-four hours, and yet do not know your name. Will you never tell it to me?"
"Yes, my name is Gentiliska; but you may call me Iska."
"Iska? Gentiliska? Where have I heard that singular name before?" inquired Sybil of herself; for in fact so many startling incidents had happened to her lately, that her mind was rather confused. She reflected a moment before she could recall the idea of the Gipsy girl, in the legend of the "Haunted Chapel." She turned and gazed at her hostess with renewed interest. A superstitious thrill ran through her frame. Yes; here were all the points of resemblance between this strange being and the spectral girl of the story! Here were the Gipsy features, the long black elf-locks, the jet black eyes, and arch eye-brows depressed towards the nose and lifted towards the temple, the elfish expression, the manner, the dress, the very name itself!
"Why do you look at me so strangely?" inquired the girl.
"Gentiliska!" repeated Sybil, as in a dream.
"Yes, that's it! Most of the girls of my race have borne it; but my great-grandmother was the last before me."
"Your great-grandmother?" echoed Sybil still as in a dream.
"Yes; she had no daughter or granddaughter, else they also would have been Gentiliska's. She had only a son and a grandson, and her grandson had only me," calmly replied the girl.
Sybil gasped for breath; and when she recovered her voice she exclaimed:
"But you have another name—a family name!"
"Oh, to be sure; most people have."
"Would you—would you tell it me?" inquired Sybil, hesitatingly.
The girl looked at her quizzingly.
"Believe me, I do not ask from idle curiosity," added Sybil.
"Oh, no; to be sure not. We are not a bit curious—we!"
"You needn't tell me," said Sybil.
"Oh, but I will. My family name? It is not a very noble one. It is indeed a very humble one—Dewberry."
"Dubarry!" exclaimed Sybil, catching her breath.
"Oh bother, no. I wish it was. That was the name of the great family who once owned all this great manor, which went to wreck and ruin for want of an heir!—oh, no; my name is Dewberry—the little fruit vine, you know, that runs along the ground, and takes its name from its cool berries being always found deep in the dew. Besides, I am English, and descended through my great-grandmother Gentiliska from the English gipsies. She was a gipsy queen."
"Gentiliska," said Sybil, "Tell me something about your great-grandmother. I feel interested in all that concerns gipsies."
"Well, but get up and dress for breakfast. I can talk while you are making your toilet."
"Certainly," said Sybil, immediately following the advice of her hostess, who with nimble hands began to help her to dress.
"My ancestress Gentiliska was the daughter of a long line of gipsy kings. On the death of her father, she became queen of the tribe."
"Her father had no sons?"
"Oh, yes, he had. But his daughter was made queen, I don't know why. She was very beautiful, and she sang and danced as charmingly as that beautiful Jewish princess, who danced off the head of holy 'John the Baptist.' She was an astute reader of human nature, and therefore a successful fortune teller. She always promised love to youth, money to the mature, and long life to the aged. One day at the races she told the fortune of a rich young man, in return for which he made hers."
"He married her."
"He did really marry her? You are sure?"
The girl flared up. "He took her abroad with him; and of course he married her."
"Of course he should have done so," sighed Sybil, as the fairy castle she had built for the girl fell like a house of cards.
"I tell you he not only should have done so, but he did so. My ancestress was no fool. She was married by special license. I have the license in a silver casket. It was the only heirloom she left her descendants, and they have kept it in the family ever since. They had a notion, I think, that there was wealth or honor hung on to it," laughed the girl.
"Honor certainly, wealth possibly."
"Ha! ha! ha! I don't see how. Little good for one or the other, it ever did us. My father was a tramp; my grandfather a tinker."
"But how was that? Your ancestress married a gentleman?"
"Yes, she married a gentleman, and her tribe discarded her when she deserted them. They would have discarded her all the same, if she had married a king who was not of her race. She went abroad with her husband, and visited, I have heard, the four quarters of the globe. She returned after two years, bringing with her a dark infant boy. She was about to go with her husband on another long, long voyage. He refused to allow her to take her child, but said, for the little lad's own sake, he must be left at nurse in England. The only point she could get him to yield was this, that the child should be left with her tribe until it should be five years old, when they would reclaim it."
"That was a very strange disposition for a gentleman to make of his son."
"It would have been, if he had cared a snap for his son, which he didn't, as after events proved. The gipsy wife sought out her own old grandmother, who was a famous doctress of the tribe. In the beldame's care she left the babe. Then with her husband she slipped away to sea, and neither the one nor the other was ever seen or heard of afterwards. The boy, deserted by his father and his mother, grew up a poor degraded little half-breed among the gipsies, scarcely tolerated by them, but loved and petted by his foster-mother, whose great power in her tribe only sufficed for his protection. When at length the old crone lay upon her death-bed, she called the youth to her side, and placed in his hand the silver casket, saying:
"Take it, my lad. It was put in my hands by your mother, when she left you with me. Take it, then; guard it as the most sacred treasure of your life; for it may bring you to wealth and honor yet.'
"And then she died, and the lad, with the casket for his only fortune, left the tribe, and took to the road alone, mending pots and kettles for a living, often suffering hunger and cold, but never, under any stress of poverty, parting with the silver casket." The girl paused for a moment and then resumed:
"But poverty never yet prevented a gipsy from taking a mate. He found one in the daughter of another travelling tinker, poorer, if possible, than himself. She lived only long enough to bring him one child, and then died, it is said, from the hardships of her life."
"That was miserable," sighed Sybil.
"It was so miserable that her widowed husband never tried marriage any more; but he brought up his son to his own trade—that of a travelling tinker. And when the time came for him to give up the ghost, he placed the casket in the hand of the boy, saying:
"Your mother died of want, rather than let it be sold for a sum that might have saved her life and made her comfortable; because she said that in it was her child's destiny. Keep it and guard it as you would guard your heart's blood.
"And so the old tinker died, and the young tramp, with the heirloom in his possession, set out to seek his fortunes.
"But he did not go upon the quest alone. Like most improvident young tramps, he took a mate. His wife was my mother. I remember both my parents while they were yet young and handsome, and very happy despite their poverty. My father—But let me stop! Before I go any further, I wish to ask you a question."
"Ask it."
"Do you believe that any one may become so maddened with causeless jealousy as to commit a crime?"
"I not only believe it, but know it."
"Then I will go on. My father doted on my mother—just doted on her! But my poor mother had a friend and benefactor, of whom my father grew insanely, furiously, but causelessly jealous.
"One day he did a cruel murder, and found out when it was too late that he had slain the father of his wife, who, in coming after her at all was only looking to the interests of his poor, unowned daughter. Ah! a volume might be written on that tragedy; but let it pass! My mother died of grief. But long ere that my father had fled the country an outlaw and the companion of outlaws.
"Once his still absorbing love for his wife drew him back to England, at the imminent risk of his life. His wife was dead, and his daughter was a little wretched child, knocked about among beggars and tramps, and in extreme danger of that last evil—that last, and worst evil that could have befallen her—being taken care of by the parish!"
"That is a severe sarcasm," said Sybil, rebukingly.
"Is it? If ever you are free again, lady, visit the most destitute homes in the world, and then the best alms-houses in your reach, and find out for yourself whether it is not better to die a free beggar than to live an imprisoned pauper. The manner in which Workhouse Charity 'whips the devil round the stump' by satisfying its conscience without benefiting its object, is one of the funniest jokes, as well as one of the most curious subjects of study, that can be found in social life."
"I am sorry to hear you say so; but go on with your story."
"My father, bowed down with remorse for his crime, and grief for the loss of his wife, found yet something to live for in me, his only child. He brought me away to the coast of France, where he and his pals were carrying on a very successful business in the smuggling line.
"They run goods to and fro between the French and English shores of the Channel. One day he was fatally wounded in an encounter with the Excise officers, near St. Margaret's. He was taken prisoner, but all the other members of his band escaped. When he knew he was dying, he sent for me, and the officers were kind enough to have me looked up.
"I was then wandering about the village in a state of destitution, in which I must have perished but for the kindness of the poorest among the poor, who shared their crusts and their pallets with me.
"I was taken to my father, who was dying in the Dover jail. He gave me the silver casket, telling me what a sacred heirloom it was, and how he had kept it through every temptation to part with it, and that I must guard it as the most precious jewel of my life; for that one day it might be the means of making me a lady."
"I didn't say 'Bosh' to my dying father; but I have said 'Bosh' ever since, every time I have thought of that bauble! It never did any good to my father, or my grandfather, and it is not likely to relent in my favor. Beyond the fact that it proves my great-grandmother, the Gipsy Queen, to have been an honest woman, I don't see any use it is to her descendants."
"I have it still, as I told you before; because from the hour of my poor father's death, I have never known a want, or felt a temptation to part with it. I was adopted by his band, who have always treated me like a princess."
"But I have a sort of spite against it, for all that, for it never yet did what was expected of it; and so, the first time I find myself hungry without the means of procuring food, I will sell the silver casket to the first purchaser I can find; and the first time I want to light a candle and can't find any other piece of paper, I will burn the marriage license."
"Don't you do it!" exclaimed Sybil, eagerly, earnestly; "burn, sell anything you possess sooner! I believe that that casket has been preserved through three generations for your sake, yours! And if, as your poor father hinted, it does not make you a lady,—for nothing but nature and education can make one a lady, you know—it will be sure to make you a woman of wealth and position!"
"Bosh! I will say 'bosh' to you; for you are not my father," sneered the girl.
"Suppose I were able to furnish you with the key to the lock of this sealed family history of yours? Suppose I could point out to you the place where Philip Dewberry, as you called him, carried his gipsy wife Gentiliska; where she died without other children; and where he also subsequently died without other heirs?" inquired Sybil.
"If you could do that, you could do wonders!" laughed the girl incredulously.
"I believe I can do all this! I believe I can give you the sequel and complement of the family history you have told me!" said Sybil seriously.
"How is it possible? You can know nothing of it. I am English, you are American. The ocean divides our countries, and the century divides that past history from the present."
"Divides and unites!" said Sybil.
"But how is that?"
"Gentiliska, did you never think of connecting the two circumstances; your race of Dewberrys searching for the estate to which they had a claim, but no clue; and this manor of the Dubarrys, waiting in abeyance for the heir who never comes to claim it?"
"No!" exclaimed the girl in some excitement, "I never did! But the coincidence is striking too. Only—one name is Dubarry and the other is Dewberry. Bosh, I say again! One name is even French, and the other is English! They are not even of the same nation; how can they have any connection with each other?"
"My dear; don't you know how easy it is to corrupt a name? Don't you see how inevitably the aristocratic French name Dubarry would be corrupted by ignorant people into the humble English name Dewberry?"
"Yes; but I never thought of that before."
"Now, will you let me look at that license?"
"I don't care. Only whenever I put my hands upon it, I am tempted to tear it up."
"Do nothing of the sort; guard it as you would guard your precious eyes. And now let me see it."