CONCLUSION.
The morning sun shone brightly into the court-chamber in the White Hall where the Earl of Bellamont was wont to administer justice. It communicated with his library, and occupied the whole of the western wing. Its windows opened to the ground on two sides, while on the other two doors communicated both with the library and chapel. Surrounded by the chief citizens and dignitaries of the law sat the governor at a table, on which lay the papers relating to the piracies of Kyd. Before him stood the pirate chief in chains, silent, composed, and dignified, if not somewhat haughty in his bearing before his foes. He was there to receive his sentence. The lawn was crowded with curious spectators, and the windows filled with those most anxious to be close to the scene. In the back part of the room, whither she had silently stolen through the window, stood Elpsy, gazing on the proceedings with folded arms and lowering brows. Through the half open door that led to the chapel was a tall dark lady of majestic person, dressed in widow's weeds, her countenance marked with the deep lines of long-continued sorrow. It was "the Dark Lady of the Rock." Not far removed from her, within the hall and near where the earl was seated, stood Fitzroy, and by his side Edwin his secretary. At a small desk covered with black velvet, on the right of the earl, sat the priest Nanfan.
At length everything was prepared, and the prisoner was commanded to stand forth and receive his sentence. The noble judge addressed him briefly, recapitulating the numerous crimes that had made his name a by-word of terror throughout the world, and which had been proved upon him, and then proceeded to execute the death-warrant. By accident, there was no pen within his reach. The bonnet of the bucanier lay on the desk before him, and caught his eye as he turned for one.
"Ha," said he, "I will pluck one from this sable feather, which has been the terrible pennon under which his dark crimes have been perpetrated. 'Tis a fit instrument to seal his doom."
He drew from the bonnet a falcon's plume, and with a few rapid strokes of the knife prepared it for use. He was about to sign the paper, when a solemnly prophetic voice, whence no one could tell, said,
"Beware of the black plume!"
The earl arrested his hand, and every eye turned in the supposed direction of the voice; but, discovering no one, they turned again towards the earl. A second time he bent his head to sign the paper; but, ere he had touched the sheet, a wild scream curdled the blood in every man's veins, and Kate Bellamont rushed from the library into the hall, and cast herself upon the shoulder of the prisoner.
"Father, hold!" she cried, lifting her face and fixing her wild eyes upon him with a terrible gaze, "hold! you shall not murder him! He is my husband!"
"Thy husband!" repeated Fitzroy, springing forward to release her from the affectionate embrace of Kyd.
"Her husband, earl!" said the priest, rising and speaking with triumphant malice.
"Woman," said Fitzroy, with forced calmness, "art thou his wife?"
"Who speaks?" she cried, wildly, putting her hair back from her face and staring at him as if she recognised him not. "Ha, Fitzroy, is it thou? Oh, I thought I loved thee! Yet I would have been thy bride if Heaven had not made me his! Yes, Robert, I am thine—thine!" she added, with wild passion.
"My child wedded to a pirate—"
"Who calls him a pirate? He is Lester's earl!" cried the poor maiden.
"Lester's earl!" cried the countess, rushing forward. "'Tis my son, then—my son!"
"Nay—back. Listen, all of ye!" said the sorceress, striding into the midst. "I can tell ye a mystery and solve it, my lord! This pirate was the Earl of Lester; but, being convinced that he was a bastard and the son of a fisherman, fled from home and became what you see him!"
"This young Robert of Lester?" exclaimed the earl; "now do I recognise his features!"
"Interrupt me not!" she said, harshly. "The true Lord of Lester was a lad called Mark Meredith, and there he stands, a third time risen from the sea to thwart my schemes! Countess of Lester, in him behold your son!"
The lady looked a moment and scanned his features with increasing amazement.
"My lord—himself! The mother's heart owns her son!"
And Fitzroy, to his surprise, found himself clasped for the first time in a mother's embrace.
In a few brief words the sorceress explained everything that has already been unfolded in the preceding pages in reference to the characters, save her own relation to two that were present.
"And who art thou, woman?" asked the wondering earl.
"The fisher's daughter, and the leman of Hurtel of the Red-Hand, and the mother of Robert Kyd!"
"My mother?" repeated the pirate.
"The fisher's daughter?" exclaimed the priest, rising with astonishment.
"Ay, Hurtel of the Red-Hand! I was thy leman! This pirate is the fruit of my illicit love and of your guilt. Ha, ha! do you not know me? Earl of Lester, behold before you, in Father Nanfan, Hurtel of the Red-Hand! Ho, ho! when I told thee yesterday that Kyd was thy son, and that thou must join me to make him wed the noble heiress of Bellamont (as the devil has given thee an opportunity of doing), I did not tell thee that I was the mother of him. So, so, thou wilt swing for it!"
"And thou shalt die for it!" he cried, snatching the sword from its sheath at Fitzroy's side and rushing upon her. Ere his hand could be arrested the point entered her bosom.
"If I hang I am well avenged on thee for it!" he cried, drawing forth the reeking blade as she fell, with a curse upon her lips, and expired.
A few words will bring the story to a close. Kyd was sent to England and executed; but Kate Bellamont died of a broken heart ere the vessel that bore him had half crossed the Atlantic.
Fitzroy was not long in discovering in Edwin his secretary no less a personage than Grace Fitzgerald; and, his affection for Kate Bellamont being chilled by her singular marriage with Kyd, he the following year, as Earl of Lester, made her his bride. Thus her true love was rewarded; and it cannot be denied that, although she loved him very much as lowborn, yet she was by no means sorry that he had proved noble.