Story 2--Chapter I.
The Falcon Rover.
The Discovery.
A mystery! By heaven, I’ll find it out.
If a man may! - The Maiden.
Speed, Malise, speed! - Lady of the Lake.
One of the most lovely pictures in lowland scenery which I have ever looked upon is that around the mouth of a river which I have called the Clearwater (the English translation of its Indian name), and which flows between two of the southern counties of the western shore of Maryland.
From the northern shore of that stream, in this place wide and beautiful, stretches out a long, flat strip of white sand, which is covered here and there with patches of crab-grass, and of that kind of cactus commonly called the prickly pear. On the western side of this strip of sand is a deep and capacious harbour, much resorted to by bay-craft and sea-going vessels, while waiting for a fair wind up or down the bay. On its eastern side extends a gulf, or indentation of the coast, called by sailors, if I remember rightly, Patuxent Roads, and which expands towards, and mingles with, the broad and beautiful Chesapeake. Along the shores of this gulf are shoals, famous in the country round as resorts of the fish called drums, which circumstance has given the name of Drum Point to the beach extending, as described, between the Clearwater and Maryland’s noble bay.
On the northern side of Drum Point harbour, and near to where the point begins to curve away from the mainland, stood, during the second decade of this century (and, indeed, for many years afterwards), a long, single-storey frame building. This building, though placed upon the sands, was still many yards away from the highest line reached by the water at high tide. Directly behind it the land rose with a rapid swell to a plateau, some thirty or forty feet above the shore of the harbour. This frame structure was what is called in the United States a store, and contained for sale such articles as are most in demand among seamen. It belonged to an individual whom, for many reasons, I will call by a fictitious name, Ashleigh, and who owned an estate of several hundred acres, embracing all the eastern line of the harbour shore, and extending some distance into the country behind it.
At the time of which I write, mysterious and very injurious stories, about the owner of this store, circulated in the neighbouring country on both sides of the Clearwater. It was said that he concealed smuggled goods, and even goods captured by pirates on the high seas, until an opportunity should occur for secretly conveying them to Baltimore for sale; and that he was implicated in some way in the trials for piracy held before one of the United States courts in Baltimore, in the early part of the present century.
At about half-past twelve o’clock, on a night towards the end of May, in the year 1817, three human figures stood upon the hill-side, overlooking Drum Point harbour. The principal form in the group was that of John Alvan Coe, a handsome young man of twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, tall, and well proportioned. When seen in the day-time, his clear blue eyes, Roman nose, and light chestnut hair, indicated a sanguine but gentle character, and one endowed with dauntless courage, controlled by a reflective mind. This young gentleman, the son of a planter in the neighbourhood, once wealthy, but now much reduced in worldly circumstances, was returning from his sport of night-fishing for drums, accompanied by two sturdy negro men, who bore between them, suspended upon a pole, the ends of which rested upon their shoulders, a large basket, heavily laden with the scaly trophies of their recent sport.
Young Coe, while passing on his way to the fishing, about sunset, along the hill-side on which he now stood, had noticed, among the two or three vessels in Drum Point harbour, a beautiful brig of about a hundred and twenty tons burden. She was remarkable among the other vessels for her graceful figure, and the neat and trim appearance of everything on board of her. On his return from the fishing, after leaving his boat hauled up on the beach of a small cove on the east side of Drum Point, his path lay across the low and sandy neck of land connecting the point with the mainland, and then in a gradual ascent along the green hill-side overlooking the harbour. While pursuing this path he had halted, with his companions, in a position from which he could view to the best advantage the fair and romantic scene which lay before him.
The moon, which was at its full, shed a softly brilliant silvery light over land and water. Away towards the west spread the beautiful lake-like expanse of the river—above five miles in length by two miles in width—which is bounded northward and southward respectively by the counties before referred to, eastward by Drum Point, and westward by the long, slender and curving, and still more lovely Point Patience. The waters of this fair expanse, softly stirred by a light breeze, gleamed with myriads of lights and shadows under the moonlight spell. The front of the low bluffs on the Saint Mary’s side of the river, and the broad beach of sand beneath them, glowed softly white in the beautiful light.
It was impossible that one endowed with the temperament of John Alvan Coe could avoid, although constantly accustomed to scenes of natural beauty, allowing his gaze to rest for a moment upon the charming view before him. His attention was soon arrested, however, by something which was occurring in the harbour under the hill on which he stood. The only vessel remaining there was the beautiful brig which he had noticed at sunset. Three boats, apparently heavily laden, had left the brig and were coming towards the shore. Soon afterwards the young man saw a light shining out from one of the back windows of the storehouse on the beach.
There were some peculiarities in the character, or rather mental constitution, of young Coe, with which it is necessary that I should acquaint the reader, before we proceed farther in the narrative, of the remarkable series of occurrences which arose to him out of the incidents of this night. He not only loved danger for its own sake, but was endowed with great fondness for romantic and stirring adventures. He had a great and at times irresistible curiosity to investigate whatever presented the appearance of darkness and mystery. In childhood this peculiarity had mainly exhibited itself in a fondness for unravelling riddles and conundrums; in more advanced youth, by solving, with great patience and industry, the most difficult problems in mathematics. The penetration of the meaning of the movement of the boats from the brig at such an hour irresistibly called to mind, as it did, the mysterious reports of smugglers and pirates in connection with this place, presented an especial fascination to a mind constituted as was his. His resolution was immediately formed to discover, at all hazards, the meaning of what was taking place beneath him.
It should have been mentioned before, perhaps, that the hill-side above the harbour was covered, to a great extent, with a growth of bushes, with a tree here and there. It was under one of the latter, whose dense shadow hid them from the view of those in the boats, that the fishing-party stood, while young Coe was making the observations recorded above. As soon as he formed the resolution already mentioned, the young man addressed the two negro men—
“Boys,” he said, “take up the basket”—they had put it down to rest themselves—“and go on. I shall follow you very soon. But do not wait for me, even though I should not overtake you before you get home.”
The two negroes resumed their load and again started on their path. The young man waited until they had passed out of sight over the hill, and until the boats had landed and the men belonging to them had, after a number of trips between the boats and the storehouse, transferred all the lading to the latter, and themselves remained under its roof. He then cautiously descended the hill, concealing himself as much as possible by interposing, whenever he could do so, the bushes between himself and the shore. In a few minutes he arrived beneath the window of the store-room from which the light that he had before observed was still shining.
Guardedly he looked in. The counter had been entirely removed from its place, revealing a long and narrow opening in the floor, and steps leading downwards. Silks and other costly dry goods, and a number of boxes and other closed packages, were piled on the counter and floor. A lamp, casting a bright light, stood upon the counter, and another light shone from an opening in the floor; and men were seen carrying the merchandise into the cellar to which the steps below the floor led, and returning at short intervals for more. Two or three other men were standing on the floor of the store-room; one or the other of whom seemed, from time to time, to be giving directions to those who were removing the piles of goods to the apartment below.
There was a tall and handsome man on the side of the room opposite to the window at which young Coe was standing, who leaned against the closed door which looked, when opened, upon the river. This man wore a dark dress, and a black hat with a broad slouched brim, which threw a dense shadow over the upper part of his countenance. The long black beard from his unshaven face reached half way from his chin to his waist. This man did not speak, except to make a remark now and then to the two or three men who were not engaged in removing the goods.
Among all the men whom young Coe saw, there was not one whom he recognised as having been seen by him before. If Mr Ashleigh himself was engaged in what was taking place, he must have been in the cellar.
John Alvan Coe had barely time to make the observations recorded above, when the tall and quiet individual, who was leaning against the closed door, beckoned to a man near him, to whom he made some remarks in a low tone. This man immediately spoke to the others who were standing about on the floor of the store room. Instantly all in the room who were not engaged in removing the goods—except the long-bearded man who wore the slouched hat, and who, with a motion not at all hurried, opened for them the door against which he had been leaning—sallied forth upon the sands.
The young man waited for no further development. Supposing very naturally, what was the case, that he had been discovered, and that this party were sent in pursuit of him, he immediately turned away from the window and plunged into the pathway leading up the hill towards Mr Ashleigh’s residence. No action, under the circumstances, could have shown the quick perception and ready decision of his mind to more advantage than his at once taking to this pathway; for, after he was once seen by his pursuers, his concealing himself amongst the few trees and scattered clumps of bushes along the hill-side would have been no safeguard under the almost daylight brightness of the clear moonlight.
Such a course would have given to his pursuers only a limited space of ground to search over at their leisure, with the absolute certainty of discovering his place of concealment and making him prisoner. His taking the plain pathway to the hill-top made his escape depend upon his fleetness of foot, but only for a short distance; the hill once surmounted, a dense forest spread for miles along the route which he had to pursue. He had no uneasiness or doubt in trusting to his speed; for, inured by daily exercise, he had long been considered the boldest leaper and fleetest runner in all the country side.