FOUND AT LAST.
Three days afterward a steamer was entering the harbor of Key West.
Margaret Walsingham, Madame Hesslein, Mr. Davenport, and the Chevalier de Calembours stood on deck, watching the fair white city grow larger, and breathing the lambent air, which brought upon its wings the perfume of wild roses, orange-trees, and tropic herbs, although the month was yet February.
Madame Hesslein had come, she told Margaret, to meet her husband at Key West; but if that were so, she chose a singular method to prepare her mind for the gentle thrill of matrimony.
She was drawing the meshes of her secret net slowly round the unwary chevalier, even as yon secret reef enclasped the beautiful isles of summer, and lay in wait to wreck the unsuspicious ship that might carry future cheer to the prisoner.
Her witchery, her diablerie was maddening the little man; his customary caution had forsaken him, his intuitive presence of danger was unheeded—he loved the splendid siren.
The steamer anchored mid-stream, and waited for the usual fleet of little boats to dart out from the city and to carry the passengers ashore—not a sign of life appeared.
At last a signal-gun was fired in answer to their salute; and what was that tiny, fluttering beacon which mounted to a tall flagstaff in the dock-yard?
The captain gazing through his glass, grew suddenly silent; his face fell. The passengers, curiously watching the limp, yellow rag, wondered much what it might presage.
Presently tiny boat shot out from the cedar-fringed shore, with one man at the oars—a painted toy which moved upon the glassy water like a tiny bird and the man climbed aboard.
He was tall, and lank, and yellow-faced; his limbs trembled as he followed the captain to the cabin, and he shunned the passengers with half-fearful looks when they would have questioned him.
In three minutes the captain and the stranger emerged from the cabin, and the passengers pressed forward to hear what catastrophe had befallen the city.
"We must just right-about face, and get back to New York," said the captain, ominously. "Not a soul can go ashore."
"What's up?" asked the gentlemen.
"Is it the plague?" whispered the ladies.
"Yellow fever," said the captain; "the whole city is raging, half the people are escaped to the main land, and the other half are dying."
Madame Hesslein's small, eager face grew pale; the chevalier burst into a heartfelt imprecation, and Mr. Davenport clutched the white Margaret's hand with a shocked, "Heaven preserve us!"
But she tore her hand away, and ran to the gaunt stranger, who had brought such dire news.
"I am going ashore with you," she said.
He looked at her wild face, and shrank from her touch; he hurried to the stern to gain the boat.
"Don't come nigh," whispered he. "I've had it."
But she seized his arm and clung to him; she would not let him go.
Murmurs rose from her fellow-passengers; Mr. Davenport's eyes threatened to start from their sockets; but the captain interfered.
"No soul can leave the steamer," said he, resolutely.
"I must go!" returned Margaret, in a frantic voice.
"Miss Walsingham, you can't go," said the captain, sternly. "You would only fall a victim; and mind, I couldn't take you aboard again to carry the infection here."
"I won't come back!" she cried; "but I must go."
"Miss Margaret, I beg of you not to throw your precious life away," entreated Mr. Davenport next. "You can't find the colonel just now; most likely he's gone, poor fellow."
"God forbid!" ejaculated she, raising her passionate eyes to heaven. "Surely I am not so wretched as that. Ah, sir, don't listen to them," she implored the man. "I will give you any money to put me ashore. There is a gentleman in Key West who may be dying for help, and he is a stranger there."
"Did you ever hear of a fellow called Brand being here?" demanded the lawyer, suspiciously.
"Oh, yes," smiled the man. "I know him well."
"Is he here?" whispered Margaret, looking piteously up at him.
"Yes, he is, at least he was three days ago, for he was nursing me, and left me last Tuesday. I am just getting about again, and haven't been in the town yet."
"There, do you hear that?" cried Margaret, turning to the lawyer with a wild smile. "Kind as ever, noble as ever. Surely you believe now that we have found him?"
"Yes," groaned Mr. Davenport; "but three days make a difference. He may be dead now."
"I will find him, and see," said Margaret.
"The woman's mad," blustered the captain, and left her to her fate.
"Nobody escapes, Miss," said the stranger, warningly.
She never listened. She wrapped her cloak about her, and brought her travelling-bag from her saloon.
"Good-by, Madame Hesslein."
She held out her steady hand, the calm light of heroism in her eyes; and madame, trembling and beseeching, saw that there was no remedy, and wept a last "Farewell, Miss Walsingham."
She held out her hand to the little chevalier, who cast an agitated glance from mademoiselle to madame, and swore that it tore his heart-strings to part from either, but that vile fortune had decreed that he was not to see "the hand clasp" and the "happy hour," and kissed her hands in adieu.
And then she offered her cold hand to Davenport, who kept it close, and walked with her to where the little boat lay.
"You must not blame me if I never return," said she, eagerly, as he bent to button her cloak for her. "You know that it is my place to care for St. Udo for his grandmother's sake. You will wait in New York for news of me, won't you?"
Mr. Davenport took her in his arms and handed her into the boat, and swung himself after her.
"Think I'd send you off alone, Miss Margaret?" asked he, with glistening eyes. "By gad, you must think meanly of me."
For the first time her resolution was shaken; she looked at him doubtfully.
"Go back! go back!" she cried, beseechingly. "You must not peril your life for ours."
The old man shook his head and sat down in the thwarts, and the boatman rowed away.
So they went to meet the peril which was worse than the battle-field; and the crew on the deck of the steamer gave them a cheer of admiration; and the passengers waved them a dubious "God-speed;" and the men sitting in the pretty bark raised a feeble "huzzah!" in return, which however, sank into hopeless silence ere it was half expressed; and they melted from the straining eyes which followed them, and went their way.
The boatman rowed into a wharf of the deserted town, secured his craft, and lifted Margaret out.
"D'ye see that great house among them trees?" he asked, pointing to a large mansion on the brow of the hill, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant.
"Them's the officers' quarters, miss, and we'll go there first. There were a score or more of sick soldiers there for their health. I came here myself after the battle, where they most killed the colonel."
"Were you with the colonel the night he was stabbed?" asked Davenport.
"Yes, sir. I never left him when I could manage to be with him. Maybe you've heard of Reed, who served the colonel for a while?"
"Yes," sighed Margaret, "he mentioned you in a letter to Dr. Gay. Hasten, kind friend, and bring us to him."
They sped through the deserted streets, where every window was barred and every door jealously locked, and a few famished dogs broke the silence by long, wild, and ominous howls.
A cart, covered with a white canvas cloth, rumbled heavily by, and then Reed took the lady's hand, and dragged her to the opposite pavement, whispering:
"Muffle your face in your handkerchief, miss, for Heaven's sake!"
And with bated breath they let the dead cart rumble by with its ghastly burden.
A funeral emerged from a court hard by—a funeral which was composed of the clergyman, an old man weeping over his dead, and tottering feebly after, and four negroes carrying the bier. They flitted by like phantoms, casting apathetic glances after the old man, the boatman, and the young lady who were mounting the hill to that lonely house on its brow.
They entered the grove, and with one accord paused and gazed toward the house, and listened, and looked in each others faces for encouragement. The door was ajar, the windows all open, and the fair white curtains, fluttering low adown among the climbing grapes and budding roses, were limp and yellow with nights of dew and days of rust, but not a living face looked out through the silent panes, not a sound broke the deep and breathless silence.
These men were brave men, but which of them would venture within these desolate walls where death triumphant reigned.
Suddenly Margaret slipped her hand from the lawyer's clasp, and fled like a spirit into the silent house—fear, hope, and love giving her the courage which these others could not summon.
She traversed the passages, where all was wild confusion, she looked into every room, but the drivers of the dead carts had been there before her—each bed was vacant, each chamber that used to echo to the careless jests of the soldiers was dull and lifeless as they.
She fled up the staircase, she opened another chamber-door—it was the last.
It was a wide, dim chamber, whose close-drawn curtains banished all the light, and between her and the window loomed a great white object—a bed with the hangings drawn close about it.
No breath, no sound—oh, Heaven! is he not here? Is he dead and gone forever?
A long sigh breaks the blank silence: a moan steals helplessly from the great white mausoleum which entombs the man.
She glides forward and draws back the shroud-like folds from window, then from bed, and the yellow light falls upon a flushed and foam-flecked face, and upon two toiling, twitching hands.
And, blessed be Heaven! this is surely St. Udo Brand, and there is life in him yet!
The lawyer enters and tries to drag her back, and fills the room with his beseeching clamor; but she breaks wildly from him, and returns to St. Udo Brand.
And, Heaven be praised! she thinks that she is in time, and that this dear soul may yet be held on earth.
So she lifts the hot head to her arm, and lays her loving hand upon the heart that is almost still, and she kisses tenderly the shrunken forehead where death fain would print his seal.
And she whispers from her noble heart:
"Oh, God! give me back his life! oh, God! give me back his life!"
And the old lawyer weeps, and repeats after her the half-articulate prayer.
One glance of anguish she casts at her poor old friend, and past him, up into Heaven, it says:
"Man cannot help us, but God will!" and then she turns again to the beloved one.
He has wronged her, hated her, maligned her; no single throb has his hushed heart ever beat for her; but she has forgiven him long ago, if she has anything to forgive. She is warming that chilling heart against her own; she is watching that disfigured face which can never be disfigured to her; she loves him faithfully.
When Reed comes back from his search for a doctor, they find the old lawyer sitting by the window, with his wet eyes covered by his hands, and the woman kneeling by the bed, with the sick man's head on her breast.
"You must leave this place," says the doctor, in affright.
"No, I will nurse him best," she smiles.
So she has her way, good, faithful Margaret.