TOM MITCHELL AS REDRESSER OF WRONGS.
The ice once broken, through the instrumentality of the Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Champagne, all went on swimmingly.
Major Ardenwood, who, perhaps, alone of all those present had nothing to conceal, and who was naturally a bon vivant, did all in his power to make himself the convivial leader of this improvised party, composed of so many various elements. He was warmly supported by the captain, who showed all the best qualities of a true amphitrion, and treated his guests with a generosity and courtesy which quite charmed them.
Of course not a word was said of the object for which they had met. In fact, the subject was carefully avoided.
The major was the first to rise.
"The best of friends," he said, "must part. I am wanted at the fort, and with your permission will retire."
"I thought," observed the captain of the outlaws, "your intention was to wait for these gentlemen here."
"No; on reflection," replied the major, laughing, "I should only be in their way. I will wait at the fort."
"I will escort them myself," said Tom Mitchell.
"That will be the better plan," continued the major. "Thanks for your hospitality. The wines were excellent."
"I will send you a few baskets, major."
"Many thanks," cried the American, shaking hands, and then departing under the guidance of Camotte.
"We can now go to the island," said the captain.
"On foot, on horseback, or do we swim?" said the young Frenchman.
"You will see. Follow me, gentlemen," replied Tom.
They did so, and found a boat ready for their reception. On the invitation of the captain they all seated themselves.
"Now, gentlemen," said Tom Mitchell, with a smile, "you must pardon me, but I must blindfold you. Fear nothing," he added, as he saw them start. "It is the custom. No stranger has ever entered the island in any other way. Besides, you are not obliged; only if you refuse you must return."
"Do as you like," cried the elder Frenchman.
Some men who held pocket handkerchiefs now approached, and deftly bound their eyes. The boat then started. In a few minutes they felt the boat strike against another shore, and received a slight shock as it did so.
"Don't touch your bands," cried the captain; "wait a while."
They were then lifted up with every precaution by several men, who soon put them down, removing the bandages.
Looking round, they found themselves in a vast chamber, furnished with every regard to comfort and elegance.
The captain was alone, the men having left.
"Welcome, gentlemen," he said. "I hope the frank and cordial hospitality I shall offer you will make you excuse this precaution."
The strangers merely bowed.
"I need not remind you, gentlemen," continued Tom Mitchell, "that you are at home; but, in order not to detain you any longer than is absolutely necessary, let us to business. Will you follow me, sir, first?"
This was said to the younger Frenchman. As he spoke he opened a door and the two passed out together.
The two other strangers remained alone. The Frenchman, with a frown, began to walk up and down whistling; the American sat down.
As soon as Tom Mitchell had the other alone, he cried—
"Sir, tell me at once if I am mistaken."
"I see you have a good memory," replied the other, "and yet it is a very long time ago since we met."
"Then I am not mistaken?" cried Tom Mitchell.
"Monsieur Maillard, my name is Pierre Durand."
"Who saved the life of myself and father," said Tom, shaking him by the hand, "even though you knew—"
"I knew that your father an hour before had sat as president of the grim tribunal of the Abbaye," replied the young Frenchman. "I knew the intense hatred which was felt towards you; still, I drew you more dead than alive from the river."
"You did more—you hid us and helped us to escape."
"It was tit for tat; your father once saved my life."
"But you paid your debt with usury. When I parted from you at New York—I was sixteen then—I said, 'Whatever happens, my life, my fortune, my honour is at your disposal.' I am ready to fulfil my promise, so speak."
"I knew you would do all in your power," said Pierre Durand; "therefore I have come. How is your father?"
"He has become an Indian, and wholly broken with everything in the shape of civilisation," said Tom.
"Is he happy?" asked Durand.
"Yes. He was a man of conviction. His faults—his crimes if you like—during the Reign of Terror were caused by his extreme sincerity. In that time of awful and terrible commotion," continued Tom, "he acted wholly conscientiously."
"I believe it, and therefore do not presume to be his judge. I am but a weak and ordinary man," cried Durand; "when the time comes God will judge these Titans of the revolution according to their merits and convictions."
"Doubtless. I shall let him know of your coming; but why?"
"A question of life and death in connection with my best friend, a man I love as a brother," cried Durand.
"Say no more. An express shall start at once."
"Have you received any letters signed 'An old friend'?"
"Many! I presume, then, that you are that friend; but why not avow yourself?"
"I could not."
"If all you tell me in those letters be true, it is an odious and infamous action," cried Tom Mitchell.
"I know it is, and I have counted on you and your father to see that justice be done," continued Durand.
"Count on me," said Tom. "I have seen your friend, and though he does not like me, he won my heart at once."
"He will change his mind."
"But what can my father do in the matter?"
"Everything. You must now understand, my friend, that if I have abandoned my ship in New York to the care of my mate, if I, who hate dry land, have started on a journey through the desert, it must be for powerful reasons."
"Doubtless. May I ask what they are?"
"Because, my friend, here in there is his most implacable, most ruthless foe," cried Durand.
"Here!" exclaimed Tom.
"Yes—here, in this island, in that room," replied Pierre Durand, pointing to the one they had left.
"Are you sure of his identity?" asked Mitchell.
"I have watched him for five years, followed in his track, known every movement he has made," said Durand.
"And he does not know you?" cried Tom.
"He knows me very well. He came over in my ship; we are the best of friends; he tried to buy me over."
"This is incredible," observed the outlaw.
"Yet true. I am his confidante, his devoted servant; I enter into all his views, and he counts on me as a slave."
Both young men burst out laughing.
"Then you have come from New York together?"
"Not at all. We met at the fort two days ago, and as I am no longer disguised," said Pierre Durand, "despite all his cunning, he knew me not."
"Well, the matter is settled," said Tom Mitchell, in a whisper; "we have our man here; he shall never leave."
"My friend," said Pierre Durand, gravely, "that is not the game we have to play. He is as slippery as an eel."
"I don't think, if I made up my mind," said the outlaw chief, with a sinister smile, "he would ever escape me."
"Well, there is a time for everything. In the first place, learn his projects, so that we may unmask him. This will be all the more easy," said the sea captain, "in that we know who he is, while he is ignorant of our designs."
"There is one thing worth mentioning," said the outlaw; "I, too, know him well. He will be rather surprised presently."
"Be careful. One word might put him on his guard."
"Is not my whole life passed," continued the outlaw, sadly, "in outdoing others in cunning and diplomacy?"
"True. I leave, then, everything to you."
"And now learn, my friend, that you are free as air, and absolute master of my domains," he added, laughing. Then he picked three flowers, and placing them in his buttonhole, said, "This will give you free passage everywhere you like. Now for your two travelling companions. But follow me."
He opened a door opposite that by which they had entered, and, crossing several apartments, at last came to a room which overlooked a charming and elegant garden.
"Here you are at home," he said; "come, go, do just as you like. At the end of the garden you will find a door opening on the woods. We shall dine at six. Be back by that time, and you will find the table laid here. We can then explain all."
With these words the outlaw left his friend.
As soon as he had returned to his private room, Tom Mitchell, or Maillard, son of the terrible judge of the Reign of Terror, sat down before a table, wrote a few lines, sealed the letter carefully, and then struck a gong.
At once Camotte appeared and took the letter.
"Send this letter to my father by express," he said; "let him kill his horse, but let me have the answer."
"He shall be gone in five minutes."
"And now," continued Tom Mitchell, with a sarcastic smile, "send that fat American in here."
Camotte bowed and retired. Next moment the great American shipowner came in puffing and blowing.
"Sit down, sir," said Tom Mitchell.
The fat man obeyed with a grunt.
"I think it rather hard that a man like me—"
"Pardon me," said the captain, coldly; "allow me to remark, before you go any further, that I have no need of you, and did not send for you. You it is who, in the company of several other gentlemen, have come to me. All of you have, I dare say, serious reasons for taking this extraordinary step. I have in no way solicited the honour. All I can do is to listen to each in his turn. I have seen one and settled with him; if you have anything to say to me, speak."
This speech, pronounced in a clear, bold tone, not unmixed with sarcasm, at once, as if by enchantment, calmed the irritation of the fat man. At all events, it compelled him to dissimulate it. After, therefore, mopping his head and face several times with a pocket handkerchief, and coughing once or twice behind his hand, he spoke—
"I was angry, sir," he said, "and own it freely."
"Be pleased, sir, to come at once to business," continued Tom Mitchell; "another person waits."
"You are, I believe, well acquainted with me?"
"I have known you a long time," remarked Tom.
"Sir, I have a nephew; he is the son of my wife's brother," began the other, "a very near relative."
"Well, sir?"
"This nephew, though a charming youth," cried Stoneweld, "is mad, utterly, hopelessly mad, sir."
"Really, sir," said the captain, "and have you come all this way to tell me this piece of news?"
"Pardon me, sir. When I say that he is mad, I believe I exaggerate. I should rather say that his intense folly has taken the form of monomania. This charming young man, as I have the honour to tell you, is in love, sir."
"A very natural matter at his age."
"But, sir," cried the shipowner, "he is in love with a young person in no way suited to his station."
"Perhaps he does not think so."
"Of course, sir, it is not his opinion. But it is mine. I am a serious man; I feel a great interest in him. Now that his father is dead I am his legal guardian—though he repudiates me. Now, sir, would you believe it," cried the fat man, "I had arranged with his aunt, my wife, the most delicious marriage for him with a young girl—I may as well be frank, a niece of my own?"
"And he wouldn't have her," said Tom.
"No, sir, he actually would not have her. Do you understand such folly on his part?" cried the other.
"Well, it is strange. But what have I to do with it?"
"I will explain if you will allow me."
"I really should feel much obliged," urged Tom.
"After refusing contemptuously this eligible alliance, which united every condition of age and fortune and position, what did the fool do? Excuse me if in my anger I speak thus of a nephew I love. One fine morning, without saying a word to anybody, he left his business to a partner, and started off, sir—what for?"
"Well, how can I say?" asked Tom.
"In pursuit of this wretched girl without family or fortune, whose parents had emigrated to the Indian frontier."
"Oh, oh!" said the captain, who began to feel interested, and who listened with a gloomy frown.
"Yes, sir," said the fat man, too wrapped up in his narrative to notice the other's looks, "so that my nephew must be somewhere here about this neighbourhood, looking after his beauty, neglecting his affairs and fortune Tor a girl he will certainly never marry."
"How do you know, sir?"
"At all events I will do everything in my power to prevent it," cried the irate citizen of Boston.
"How will you set about it?"
"Sir, I have been told that you were the only man in these parts capable of arresting a fugitive."
"You do me too much honour."
"I have a number of unclosed accounts, needless to explain, with his father. Arrest the young man, sir!" cried the Bostonian; "Arrest him and place him safely in my hands, and the sum of one thousand guineas is yours."
As he spoke, the worthy shipowner pulled out an enormous pocketbook from his coat and opened it.
"Excuse me, sir," said the captain, "do not let us be in quite such a hurry. You have not quite finished."
"How so?" cried the American.
"You have forgotten," said the captain with simple frankness, "to tell me the name of your foolish nephew."
"George Clinton, sir, a very fine lad, though I say it."
"I know him," retorted the captain, coldly.
"You know him!" exclaimed the shipowner, "Then the affair is settled. You will have him arrested."
"Perhaps," said Tom Mitchell; "I will reflect on the affair, which is not so easy as you may suppose."
"To you, the chief of the outlaws?"
"George Clinton is not alone. He has many and powerful friends on the frontier."
"But I have plenty of money."
"I tell you, I will reflect. You will now return to the fort under escort. In two days you shall have my answer."
"But allow me to pay you a deposit," cried the other.
"Keep your money for the present," said Tom, and striking a gong, Camotte appeared as if by magic.
"But—" blustered the rich merchant.
"Not another word, sir. Wait patiently for my reply. I am your most obedient servant."
And led away by Camotte, the rich shipowner of Boston went out spluttering and perspiring as before.
"Now," said the captain to himself, with a sarcastic smile, "let us see what the other fellow is made of."
He went to the door, and, entering the cavern, bowed to the Frenchman, who was still walking up and down.
"Will you be good enough to come this way, Monsieur Hebrard," he said, with an engaging smile.
The Frenchman looked at him with astonishment, but on a repetition of the invitation went in.
The captain chuckled to himself at this evidence of the other's utter surprise and bewilderment.
It was as if he had scored one.