THE LONGED FOR MEETING.
Habitual reverence is a curious thing—more strong than most other habits. I was certainly of a somewhat impetuous disposition, eager and impatient of delay, notwithstanding all the drilling I had had in long wanderings and many difficulties and distresses; but yet the habitual reverence which I entertained for good Father Bonneville was not to be mastered. It was one of those impressions received in youth, which, like the foot-prints of certain animals that we discover in the rock, had been pressed down there when the substance was soft, but had been rendered indelible as it hardened. I returned from London disappointed in one of my expectations, and I would fain have had a long conversation with good Father Bonneville, in regard to all the doubts and mysteries surrounding my own peculiar fate. The promise he had given of knowledge at a future time did not satisfy me, and I thought that if he would but touch upon the subject again, I would press him hard for further explanation. Nay, more, I judged that the very party at Westover’s would open the way, and resolved that I would not fail to take advantage of the very first opportunity.
When the good Father came down to breakfast, however, with his calm, placid countenance, and his usual quiet taciturnity, although there was nothing in the least repulsive, none of that impenetrability which sometimes characterizes the Roman Catholic priest, yet I felt a repugnance to the idea of urging upon him a subject which he had shown so much anxiety to avoid, and he certainly gave me no direct encouragement. He merely asked if I had met a pleasant party at Captain Westover’s; and when I in return told him of whom that party consisted, and dwelt somewhat particularly upon the appearance and demeanor of the Earl of N——, he seemed, I thought, a little surprised, and I could not help fancying that a shade from some strong, and not pleasant emotion, passed over his countenance: yet he asked not a question, and made no observation of any kind. I then suffered the subject to drop, notwithstanding all my resolutions.
Some days passed quietly and dully enough. English people are not fond of making new acquaintances. None of our neighbors had yet called upon us, and the gentleman whom I had met by the side of the brook, did not make his appearance. Quiet tranquillity is the most burdensome of all things to an impatient spirit; and I confess I fretted myself a good deal during those dull three or four days. It seemed to me as if all the world had forgotten us; and I felt much more solitary there, with every comfort around me, than I had done in my long wandering from Switzerland to Hamburgh, when I might very well have believed myself almost alone upon the earth.
It rained, too, incessantly; and I began to feel very English, and to abuse the climate heartily—though, by the way, it is the best I ever saw, except, perhaps, in the central parts of France. I could not ride out. I got tired of reading. I had nobody to write to. I was weary of myself and the whole world—even Father Bonneville’s calm, sweet placidity, his tranquil employments, and patience under the load of dullness, half vexed me.
It was on the Saturday morning early, however, that a change took place; the sky became clearer; light clouds, like enormous flakes of snow, succeeded the dull, gray, pouring banks of rain; blue sky appeared here and there; and, to complete all, as I looked out of the window, after breakfast, I saw Westover riding up toward the house, with a servant behind him, and a little valise behind the servant.
There was no horse or carriage-way up to the house, which was approached by a path through a pretty little garden; and as he dismounted at the gate, I heard my friend desire his groom to bring in the valise, to take the horses to the inn, and to give Miss Kitty a feed and a half. He then walked slowly up to the house, nodding to me as he came; and I could not help remarking that he seemed pale and ill.
He was in his usual good spirits, however, and shook hands with me and Father Bonneville heartily, saying, “Did you hear my order, De Lacy; to bring in my valise? An unlucky thing for you, my friend, that I was at the taking of your house, and know that you have a spare room; for I come to beg quarters of you till Monday.”
I welcomed him gladly, and seating himself somewhat languidly, he said—
“I have been unwell for the last few days, and they tell me I should leave that bustling, tiresome town of London; so I have come to see if you will give me quiet lodging here, just as a trial—not that I think it will do me any good.”
“Why—what is the matter, Westover?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing but that tiresome ball,” he replied, laying his hand upon his chest. “It has taken another move I suppose, and set me spitting blood again.”
“What, has it not been extracted?” I asked.
He shook his head mournfully, answering—
“No, no, it is there for life, they say, be life long or short; and it is the strangest thing in the world, how a trifle like this—having an ounce of lead in one, without knowing where to find it—will weigh upon a man’s spirits, how it is ever present to his thoughts—a something he cannot get rid of—the sword hung by a single hair over his head, during the whole of the great festival of life.”
“Well, we will keep you here quietly,” I answered; “which we can do with the most marvelous perfection.”
“If you had been here during these last three days,” said Father Bonneville, with a quiet smile at me; “you would have had quiet enough, Captain Westover—more quiet than our friend Louis likes, I believe; for, as you may remark, he has literally worn the carpet by walking from that table to the window. I always think we may gain good lessons from the brute creation. God teaches them what is best under all circumstances; and I copy the cocks and hens, and the great dog, all of which, I remark, invariably sit quite still, and take every thing quietly during rainy weather, knowing, that walk as fast as they would, or as much, they cannot change the wind, or make the clouds withhold a drop.”
Westover smiled, but replied—
“It is not exactly quiet I am seeking, my reverend friend, but to be out of the air, and the parties, and the smoke of cities, and the impertinent chattering, which is the smoke of society. No, no—no quiet for me. If I am soon to ride with my troop, I may as well ride here, and so I intend to make De Lacy mount his horse, and gallop away with me to Eltham or Esher, or some of those places memorable in the past, where we can sit down, and play the part of Volney for an hour, amongst the ruins of empires. Then to-morrow, I intend to go with you to Mass; for all Protestant as I am, I cannot help admitting that you sing a great deal better in your worst chapels than we do in our best.”
Father Bonneville looked at me with a faint smile, and I informed Westover that we had both of us, in the course of the last two years, abandoned the church of Rome.
“It was not from any motives of interest, Captain Westover,” said Father Bonneville, “neither from fear nor for favor, but from pure conviction. The fact is, that in a time of great distress and anxiety, I found so much consolation in the Bible, that I could not remain attached to a church which denied it to my fellow men, and, moreover—without being uncharitable—I thought I could see the reason of its being withheld from men in general, in its manifest condemnation of the practices of those who withhold it. Louis came to the same conclusion while we were far apart; and parting as Roman Catholics we met as Protestants.”
Westover seemed much more surprised, and even moved by this intelligence than I could have expected. He shook me warmly by the hand, congratulating me, and saying—
“I am glad of it, De Lacy, I am glad of it. That makes a very great difference—I am sincerely glad of it. We will talk no more of going to Mass; though I do like to hear a good Mass well sung—so much so, indeed, that my noble grandfather is every now and then in terror of his life, for fear I should turn Papist, in which case, as he is the most ultra Protestant that ever lived, he would, doubtless, cut me off with a shilling, and be very sorry that he could not deprive me of the fortune my Uncle Westover left me, lest I should spend it in favor of the Propaganda—but come, De Lacy, let us take a walk to the inn, mount our horses, and ride.”
We were soon upon our way, and as we passed slowly along through the little village of Lewisham, Westover, who was looking round him, exclaimed, “Good heaven, what a beautiful face!”
I turned my head sharply, but could see no one. The road was vacant, except where a laboring man was wheeling a barrow, and a carrier was taking a trunk out of a cart. At the side of the road, indeed, was one of those little picturesque cottages, only to be seen in England, where fine taste and love for the beautiful, has decorated with a thousand charms the very lowliest of dwellings. It was only one story in height. The windows were mere lattices, with diamond-shaped panes of glass, rattling in leaden frames. The roof was thatched, and the door seemed hardly tall enough for the entrance of a man, but the thatch was covered with the rich green house-leek, and the whole front of the house was in a glow with roses, trained beautifully between the little windows, and every here and there holding out a long blossom-bearing arm, as if to invite the passing stranger.
“She’s gone,” said Westover, “run away at the sight of two men on horseback, as if it were the first time in life she had seen that sort of Centaur. But I certainly never did see a more lovely creature.”
I made him describe her to me; but what description can ever give an idea of a face? His was incomplete enough, but he said she had the most lovely eyes in the world, and that was quite sufficient to set my foolish fancy filling up the outline with the features of Mariette. I caught myself in the midst of this portrait-painting, a new sort of castle-building, and could not help smiling at my vain imaginations.
“What are you laughing at, De Lacy?” asked my companion.
“At myself, Westover,” I replied. “The truth is, your description is so like some one I have been long seeking, and would give both my hands to find, that, for a moment, you set my fancy wild with the idea that she and your cottage-girl might have been the same.”
“O, ho,” said Westover, with a laugh; “but if your love affair has been of long duration, this cannot be the same, for she seemed quite young—not more than seventeen or eighteen.”
“That might well be,” I answered; “and yet my love affair, as you call it, might date from twelve years ago. The person I seek is the companion of my youth, one who is now an emigrant like myself, and I much fear that she and her mother both, may be in some distress, while I have the power of relieving it, and know not where to find them.”
“Yours must be a strange, curious history,” said Captain Westover. “I wish, some dull evening, when you have nothing better to do, you would tell it me, point by point. I am fond of a dreamy talk with a man over his past times.”
“I should have thought there were attractions enough in the metropolis,” I answered, “to occupy all the time of you men of fashion, in other ways than that.”
“Attractions,” replied Captain Westover, “which either leave no remembrance, or a sting. Take my word for it, De Lacy, there are multitudes of us who would gladly leave wax candles to blaze, and champagne to sparkle, and bright eyes—with no heart behind them—to shine, in order to sit beneath a shaded lamp with a man of real action, who has seen something of different countries, and a different world, and a different life from ourselves, and listen to tales of the heart’s realities, while all else around us is but the tinseled pageantry of a dream. Come, when shall it be, De Lacy?”
“To-night, if you will,” I answered; “we are certain of being uninterrupted.”
“But the old man,” he said. “Young men can never talk with open hearts before old ones. There is a power in age which controls us even when there is no real authority.”
“O, he goes to bed always at nine,” I said; and so we arranged it should be, and so it was.
When we returned after our ride, Father Bonneville informed me that there were some persons in the neighborhood, upon whom he wished me to call with him on the Monday following; and Westover and I went up to dress for dinner—a much more important operation than it has since become, even within my own knowledge. We had the usual English dinner, a small turbot, some boiled chickens and ham, preceded by soup after the French fashion, (which I knew Father Bonneville could not do without,) and followed by the inevitable apple-tart. After his coffee, the good Father remained for an hour or so, then lighted his candle, and having apologized, with the grace of an old courtier, for his early habits, retired to rest. My story was then told much as I am now telling it, only with more brevity, and I must say that Westover not only listened with the fortitude of a martyr, but showed a deep interest, if I may judge by his questions, in many parts of my narrative. Once or twice he rose, and walked up and down the little room, sitting down when I paused, and saying, “Go on, De Lacy, I am listening.”
I could not finish the whole in one night; but on the Sunday evening the tale was concluded, and on the Monday, in spite of remonstrance, he set out, saying he was going back to London. Why, I know not, but I watched him from the window, across the heath, meditating on the state of his health, and the risk he ran in joining his regiment again, with an unextracted ball still in his chest.
Suddenly, to my surprise, I saw him pull in his horse, at the distance of some five hundred yards from the house, beckon up his servant, and speak to him for a moment. The master then took the left-hand road, which led toward Lewisham, and the groom rode upon the way to London.
It is utterly impossible to describe the sensations which I experienced at that moment. There was a mixture of anger, and suspicion, and jealousy, which I can hardly characterize even to my mind at present. Fancy was as busy as a fiend; and I felt quite sure that he was going back toward the cottage, in order, if possible, to form some acquaintance with the beautiful girl he had seen. I persuaded myself in a moment—although I had unpersuaded myself before—that she must be Mariette; and I pictured to myself, Westover, with his handsome person and winning address, making instant love to her, and banishing poor Louis de Lacy for ever from her heart.
It took me an hour’s struggle to overcome such feelings, and when I had done my best I was still dissatisfied.
Toward twelve o’clock, Father Bonneville proposed that we should go out for our visit, and for the first time, I asked where that visit was to be.
“Why, Louis,” he replied, “you seemed so indifferent when I spoke of it on Saturday, that I did not tell you the acquaintance you made while fishing, came to call upon us during your ride with Captain Westover. He is a gentleman of good family, and we must of course return his visit, even were it not that I believe he can now inform us where to find Madame de Salins.”
“Is Mariette not with her?” I asked eagerly.
“I believe so,” replied Father Bonneville, with a smile; “but let us go, I said we should be there before one.”
I did not delay him, but I must confess, I thought he walked marvelously slow, and wished from the bottom of my heart, that I had ordered the pony carriage for our excursion. He took his way straight toward Lewisham, turned to the left in the village, keeping on the left-hand side, directly to the cottage with its roses. I do not know what had got into my heart; but it brought to my remembrance a trick which I had seen a charlatan play with an egg, which, by some contrivance, he made to jump out of a pot the moment it was put in. He stopped at the door—at the very door, and then suddenly said:
“Why, what is the matter with you, Louis? You are as pale as death.”
“O, nothing, nothing,” I replied, and knocked hard for admittance. I was red enough then. A small servant-girl opened the door, and Father Bonneville asked—“Whether Monsieur Le Comte was at home?”
My hopes about Mariette began to fail, and diminished to a very small point when, on entering a little room, containing a good number of books, I found my acquaintance of the brook-side alone, and without a vestige of woman’s occupation any where visible.
He shook hands with us both, welcomed us heartily, and in common civility I was obliged to repress my curiosity for a time.
“This is my little study,” he said, after some preliminary conversation, “where I teach a few young pupils French, in order to eke out the small means of subsistence I have left. But I thank God for all things, and only regret that I have not enough to aid those of my countrymen who have even less than myself.”
“That is what I fear,” I answered, “that there are many, and amongst them some I deeply love, who may be suffering great distress, while I have a superabundance.”
“There are, indeed, many, Monsieur De Lacy,” he said; but as the words were upon his lips the door opened, and a voice of music said, “May I come in?”
“Certainly, my child,” he replied; but she had taken it for granted, and was in the room. There were the same eyes, the same look, the same beautiful face which I had seen in the carriage, but with a figure, how full of exquisite grace, how perfect in all its symmetry!
If my heart had not told me, at once, that it was Mariette, the glad spring forward with which she flew to the arms of Father Bonneville would have shown me the fact at once.
What possessed me I cannot tell, but I could not speak a word, and stood like a fool, the more confounded from feeling that the eyes of a stranger were upon me—yes, he gazed at me, earnestly, inquiringly. I must, somehow, have betrayed myself.
“Do you not know me, Louis?” asked Mariette, holding out her hands to me.
“Know you!” I cried, and if the whole world had been present, I could not have refrained from taking her in my arms and kissing her cheek.
“Know you!” I repeated, “O, yes, I knew you the very first moment I saw you in the carriage on Blackheath.”
“And I did not know you,” said Mariette, artlessly; “but how should I, Louis? Here, you are a great tall man, six feet high; and yet you’re still the same—the same eyes, and the same mouth, only your hair is darker and not so curly.”
“I rode after you all through Greenwich,” I replied, apropos to nothing; for my whole head was in a whirl, and she had left her hand in mine, which did not tend to stay the beating of my heart, “but I could find no trace of you.”
“Sit down, sit down, my children,” said the master of the house, “you are both agitated with your young memories. I will go and call your mother.”
“Let me—let me,” said Mariette, and running to the foot of the little stairs, she exclaimed, “Mamma, mamma, here are Louis and Monsieur De Bonneville.”
Madame de Salins ran down lightly and eagerly, and indeed she was very little altered—looking, perhaps, better than when I had last seen her. It was clear she was sincerely glad to meet us again; and seated round the table, a thousand questions were asked, and about half the number answered. All old feelings and memories revived. We talked of our little cottage on the Rhine, of our meeting in Paris, and our adventures by the way. The stranger joined in frankly and familiarly, evidently knowing all that had befallen us. We formed again, as it were, one family, and at length, emboldened by this renewal of old associations, I turned smiling from the gentleman of the house to Madame de Salins, saying, perhaps abruptly—
“Who is this? May I not be formally introduced to him?”
“Do you not know him, Louis?” she exclaimed, with a look of surprise. “It is my husband—The Count de Salins. How else should I be here?”
“You forget, mamma, you forget,” said Mariette. “Louis always thought that he was dead,” and casting herself upon her father’s neck, she shed a few tears over the memory of the terrible days when first we met.
I looked surprised and bewildered, as well I might; and looking round at Madame de Salins, I murmured—
“You told me he was dead.”
“I thought so when I told you so, Louis,” she replied, “I saw him fall before my eyes, wounded in several places, and to all appearance dead. But a glimmering of hope, springing from what source, I know not, led me to trust my child to you and hurry back to the court of the château where he had fallen. The assassins were gone; my husband’s blood was still reeking from the ground; but his body was not there, and after a long period of terrible suspense—it was but two hours, but it seemed an eternity to me—I found that one of our good farmers had carried him away, and was nursing in his own house a feeble spark of life which he had found yet remaining. I flew to him; I tended him many weeks in secret; I saw him recover consciousness and hope. None who beheld him then, however, would have recognized the gay and handsome De Salins; and it was agreed that he should be carried some ten or twelve leagues by night, and thence removed to Paris in a litter as a dropsical patient going to seek the aid of our good friend Doctor L——. All the peasantry were in our favor. It was but the people of the cities who were infected with the epidemic madness of the times. Every one aided—every one was as secret as death. The very dogs of the farm-houses seemed to comprehend and enter into our purposes. They barked not when the litter entered the yard, but moved round us watchfully, as if to defend, rather than betray us. It was necessary that I should part with him, however; for my presence would have discovered all; and I hurried back to seek my child, and meet him in Paris. Monsieur L—— was already prepared for his coming; but he did more than could have been expected or even hoped. He took him into his own house, and kept him there in profound secrecy for some months. During that time I lay concealed under the appearance of abject poverty. Mariette visited him every day, upon the pretence of carrying little articles of food to the good Doctor’s house; and neither by word or look, did she betray the secret—even to you, Louis. Do you forgive us?”
I put my hand in my bosom, and drew out the ring which Madame de Salins had given me, and which still remained suspended round my neck by the little gold chain. I pressed it to my lips for my only reply; and gently bending her head with a sweet smile, she proceeded, saying, “I could see him but seldom—I dared rarely venture; but at length Dr. L—— formed the scheme for us of making our escape from Paris, crossing the Rhine, and waiting there for my husband’s coming. He was to follow as speedily as possible, in the character of an officer of the Republican army, who had been wounded at the battle of Jemappes. A thousand obstacles intervened, however, and I remained in terrible anxiety, till at length a letter informed me that he whom I had well-nigh given up for lost, had crossed the Rhine in safety, and was then at Dusseldorf waiting my coming. It was still necessary to maintain the most profound secrecy; for emigrants were surrounded by spies and traitors, and one indiscreet word might have brought the head of good Doctor L. to the block. I joined my husband in safety with Mariette, however, and our good farmers had gathered together a sum of money sufficient to enable us to cross the sea to this island, and to live for some time obscurely here. That sum would have been exhausted long ago, had we not by a fortunate chance been driven from our small lodging in Swallow street by a brutal man, whom I believe to be a spy, but who had once received great favors from our family when a poor apothecary in Paris. He, a sensual, horrible patron, the Marquis de Carcassonne, had no mercy upon us; but having purchased the house, turned us out in the street four years ago. We heard of this little cottage and took it; and a blessing it was; for Monsieur de Salins has obtained a little class of pupils, by which our small means have been somewhat saved.”
“We sought you in that house in Swallow street,” said Father Bonneville, “Louis was impressed with the idea that you must be in want, and he has been hunting for you far and wide ever since we came to England.”
“Real want, we have never known,” said Monsieur de Salins, “though we have been poor enough—ay, so poor, as to induce me to let my child go on a long visit to some rich and vulgar people, in order to economize our little pittance. They thought that Mariette de Salins was reduced so low as to accept the hand of their coarse son, and think it an honor and a favor; but they have learned better now.”
“And did you visit that house in Swallow street?” asked Madame de Salins, looking at me with an anxious and inquiring glance. “Who did you see there?”
I told her all the particulars, Father Bonneville adding a word here and there, and the account seemed to strike both Monsieur de Salins and his wife with much surprise.
“He does not know,” said Madame de Salins, in a low and thoughtful tone, turning her eyes upon her husband, “he does not know.”
“And so you found Monsieur de Carcassonne in poverty and distress?” said Monsieur de Salins, “the one viper, I suppose, has stung the other. God of heaven, my dear wife, how thankful we should be to Him on high, that we sit here, and eat the daily bread of his mercy, with consciences clear of offense, and hearts unloaded by a weight of guilt. Let them take all from us, but our innocence and our honor, and we shall be rich compared with these men, even were they wealthy and powerful as in days of old.”
“And is it possible, Monsieur de Salins,” I asked, following the line of thought in which my mind had been principally running, though there were many other subjects eagerly appealing for attention, “Is it possible that you, and dear Mariette, and Madame de Salins, have been living here in comparative poverty, while I have been enjoying wealth and all that wealth can give? This must be no longer——”
I saw a slight shade come over his countenance, and I added, “Madame de Salins has been a mother to me; Mariette has been a sister. I have sought them eagerly, daily since I have been in England, in order to perform toward them the duties of a son and a brother. Surely Monsieur de Salins,” I continued, taking his hand in mine, “you will not suffer my having the good fortune to find you with them, to deprive me of my right of adoption?”
“Dear, noble, generous Louis,” said Mariette, throwing her beautiful arm round my neck, as if I had been indeed her brother.
“Why, I taught her to read and write,” I said, drawing her gently toward her father. “She was my first and dearest pupil—I have all her little books now, in which she spelt her early lessons.”
“And the pictures, and the pictures you drew, Louis,” cried Mariette.
“All, all safe through all my wanderings,” I replied. “Come, Monsieur de Salins, I have a beautiful little place hard-by—ample means for all of us. Every thing shall be soon prepared for you, and Madame de Salins, and dear Mariette. We will share house and fortune and all, and be one family again, as we were in our sweet cottage by the Rhine.”
I knew not what it was I urged—all the objections that a father’s eye might see—all the difficulties in regard to the world, and the world’s opinion; and I was not aware, till I found that even Father Bonneville remained silent, and did not second me, that I was asking too much.
Monsieur de Salins, for his part, smiled at my enthusiasm, while Madame de Salins wept at it; but he answered kindly and affectionately, putting quietly aside all points difficult to deal with, and saying jestingly, “Why, you would not have us quit this little, rosy dwelling where we have been so happy; but be assured, my dear young friend, that no guest will be more loved and honored within its walls than the Count De Lacy.”
I felt from his tone, that it would be in vain to press my request further that day; but I knew the effect of perseverance, and I had hope for the future. At all events Mariette and I had met again. I was resolved that nothing should make me lose sight of her thenceforth, and like all young hearts, I gave myself up to the present joy with trustful confidence in the happiness of to-morrow.
Several hours glided sweetly by, and it was late in the day when Father Bonneville and I retrod our steps to our own dwelling, each full of thought.
[Conclusion in our next.
I WOO THEE, SPRING.
———
BY WILLIAM ALBERT SUTLIFFE.
———
I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring,
To a kindly-thoughted lay,
And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming,
Through the lee-lang sunny day!
When young loves bud and old loves bloom—
When the warm earth bans all shade of gloom,
And bees hum summerly.
I woo thine ears to a kindly tale,
And what shall the story be?
I will tell thee dearest bonds are frail,
And that stars and flowers flee.
I will tell thee a tale of woful wings
That rive from the soul its precious things,
And shadow sweet fantasy.
I will tell thee of some that have fled away
Since last we saw thy face;
And some that are gone from the sheeny day
To the lonesome burial-place.
And of joys, like a string of pearls unstrung—
Like treasured flowers to the fierce wind flung,
That sleep with the buried grace.
O, I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring,
To a sadly-thoughted lay,
And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming,
Through the lee-lang cloudy day!
For the lone day dies through purple bars—
And a misty grief enwraps the stars,
And our hopes are ashen-gray.
But the flowers bud and the flowers blow
And the mossy streams are sheen,
And the downy clouds to the Norland go,
While the blue sky laughs between;
And the light without, to the dark within,
Would seem to say—“Will ye up and win
While the paths of life are green?”
But the outer joy on the soul’s annoy
Looks in and laughs in vain—
For the inner chains of the spirit’s pains
May ne’er be reft in twain;
And the song that erst in joy begun
Sinks into wail ere the setting sun,
A sad and deathful strain.
So I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring,
To a dreary-thoughted lay,
And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming,
Through the lee-lang weary day!
Through the lee-lang day and the plodding night—
When no golden star’s in the lift alight,
To brighten a weary way.
SONG.
———
BY L. L. M.
———
When morn’s soft light is o’er us shed,
When pearl drops bow each taper leaf,
And e’en the lily’s queenly head
Pays homage to the glory brief—
Who ever recks of coming night,
Or grieves that such an hour must be—
Who ever weeps o’er winter’s blight
While summer decks the dewy lea.
The forest leaf now pale and sere
Once bent to roving breezes’ kiss;
The faded flower on Autumn’s bier
Once seemed too gayly bright for this,
Nor did they droop and whisper all
Of mildew dank, of frost and blight;
But ever rang the wild-wood hall
With joyous song and murmur light.
And grievest thou, dear one, that life
Is but a dream that soon is past?
Fear’st thou the briefly bitter strife,
The shadows on thy pathway cast?
Nay, ’tis not well—though day’s soon gone;
The flowers soon pale that bind thy brow;
Though night and death are stealing on,
Forget not, love, ’tis morning now!
TWO WAYS TO MANAGE.
———
BY THE AUTHOR OF “CLOVERNOOK.”
———
It was night, black night all over the world, and denser night within the dwelling of Margery Starveling. Now and then, the half-moon broke through the clouds that obscured the face of heaven, and some straggling and uncertain beams slanting through the narrow south window, gave to the low, homely apartment a ghostly sort of glow that was gloomier to see than the dark. Yet the night was one to make timid hearts beat quick, especially in a dismal old house, where there was no light save occasional glimpses of the half-moon. But Margery was not afraid—she was used to darkness and solitude, and needed not the interchange of humanities for her comfort, else she would have aroused from the sleep which had fallen upon her, the child, who—with cheek leaned against the rough stone jam—was alike unconscious of the dark, and the rats gnawing hungrily at the floor, or loosening the hearth beneath her feet. It may be that bright dreams came to her, even there, for what shall stay them from innocence? and the rough jam may have seemed a pillow of down, and the chill moonlight, as it fell against her, the golden curtaining of a pleasant couch.
All was quiet within doors, save the digging and the gnawing I have mentioned, but in the woods that partly encircled the place, and darkened close against the western gables, the winds went blindly moaning up and down, and the dead boughs creaked against each other, filling the time with music when the ill-boding owls muffled themselves away.
It was very still in the house, I said, for though Margery was busy, her work made no noise, till laying aside the great fleece of wool from her knees, which her skinny fingers had been picking apart, she spoke aloud, and on this wise—
“I will stir with my staff the embers from which the glow is well-nigh perished, that my child may feel in her sleep its comfortable influence, for evil dreams may come of unrest, and evil dreams make evil thoughts, and when they have once taken possession of the heart, how hardly are they charmed away.” So, having taken the fleece from her knees and laid it over a wooden stool at her feet, she arose, and fumbling in the chimney-corner opposite to that where the child slept, produced a great knotty staff, the lower end of which was blackened and charred. With this she stirred the gray ashes from the fiery log that lay beneath, and beating and breaking it into coals, gathered the dry cinders together that were scattered about, and having spread them over the freshly-broken coals, a blaze sprung up, slight and blue at first, but reddening and deepening till the rafters over-head, and the oak slabs below, the walnut bedstead in the corner, with its antique carving, and elaborately wrought tester, and the huge chest with its iron padlock, the wrinkled visage of the old woman, and the pale hair and plump, naked feet of the child, were all distinctly visible.
“Charity, my pretty darling,” called the old woman, as she resumed her seat and the fleece of wool, “Wake, and betake thee to thy wheel for an hour, and I will tell thee of the plan I have made to keep our house full of cheer and music all the while, even when thou weariest of the wheel, and thy tongue prattlest not.”
The child rubbed her eyes, lifted her head from the stone jam, saying in a voice sweet and plaintive, as we sometimes hear a bird’s—
“I have spun my task, grandam—six wisps of flax into as many hanks of thread, and thou seest my distaff is naked—but I will wind it with another wisp and spin, at least till thy task is done.”
Her naked feet pattered across the slab floor, and climbing on a ladder, she took from a peg in the rafter a fresh wisp, and as she wound the distaff peered through the south window at the half-moon, or rather at the yellowish color in the clouds behind which the half-moon was concealed.
“It wears near the midnight, good grandam,” she said, shoving her wheel aside: “I will pick on the fleece, and so thy voice will not be drowned as thou tellest the plan thou hast mused of.”
“As thou sayest,” answered Margery, “it wears near the midnight, as is told by the shrill cry of the cricket, to say nothing of the aching in my bones, and the dizzy feeling that creeps along my forehead now and then;” and laying her skinny fingers over the wrinkles on her brow, she bowed her head forward for a minute, looking more like a witch making some unholy incantation, than a live human being, and a woman as she was. Her dress, summer and winter, was composed of cow-hide shoes, clasped over the ankles with buckles of brass, a gown of dark woolen stuff, made in a straight, stiff fashion peculiar to herself, and she wore over her shoulders a small circular cape, that had once been part of a tiger’s hide. On her head she wore no cap or other covering, and her gray hair was parted on the crown and combed either way, one half being cut in a straight line above her forehead, and the other on her neck.
She seemed seventy, or thereabout—nevertheless, her hair was neither thin nor very white.
“Thou hast wrought too hardly, grandam, mayhap,” said the child. “Fold up thy hands now, and the portion of the fleece that remaineth be mine to do;” as she spoke, she wound her arm about the neck of Margery, for she loved her, albeit she looked so repelling.
“Nay, child,” answered the dame, “it is not often we have so pleasant a light, and pity ’twere to lose it. We must improve the advantages we have, little one, else want will be staring us in the face, and reproaching us with negligence when it is too late. I cannot work as I could with forty years less weighing me down, so I must do what I may.”
“I saw,” said the child, “when I went to Farmer Jocelin’s, for the measure of meal thou wottest of, three good tallow-candles alight in one room. The noonday sun were scarce brighter,” she continued in amazement, both at the wondrous light and the prodigality. “He must have great estates, grandam, to maintain such indolent and luxurious life. True, Mistress Jocelin was at work with some knitting, but not heedfully nor diligently, but more attentive to the reading of a book, which, indeed, to look upon was very beautiful, for as Farmer Jocelin held it near the light, the edges of the leaves glittered like gold, and the leathern cover was bright as the bosom of the bird that sings in the peach-tree, here, in summer. But Master Lawrence—what, think you, he did by all that flood of light? Why, nothing for thrift; for he sat on the matting of the floor, cutting pieces of smooth brown paper into a kite. Yet he had a sweet smile, and seemed to have a good heart withal,” added Charity, and her fingers flew more nimbly through the wool, “for as he served round a salver of apples, at his mother’s bidding, he urged me to take one so earnestly, yet kindly, that I might scarce refuse, and when I did—for that I might not rob Farmer Jocelin of his substance, giving him nothing in turn—he forced one into my lap and ran laughingly aside, so that I might not return it.”
“Alas! alas!” said Margery, “have I reared thee thus carefully in vain, that when thou escapest from my sight, but for a moment, thou yieldest to sinful temptation, eating the fruit thou hast not earned.”
“Nay, grandam, thy conclusion is over-hasty. I kept the fruit unbruised and untasted, though its sweet fragrance made it hard to resist, and when the maid brought in the measure of meal, I gave it to her hand, and she restored it to the salver; but when Master Lawrence saw it, he looked as though he would have cried, even in such beautiful light, and with so much fair brown paper, to fashion as he would.”
“I am glad thou hast wit to serve thee upon occasion,” spoke Margery, her fingers flying nimbly as the child’s; “and if Farmer Jocelin burns three good tallow-candles at one time, and that at no merry-making or gala-night, his children will be the likelier to sit in the light of fagots—and Master Lawrence was wastefully cutting smooth brown paper. I am glad thou hadst wit to refuse the apple, but thou shouldst have frowned smartly the while. If I see the young scapegrace this way, as belike he may come, with further temptations, I will make my tongue as a chisel, cutting such a lesson of wisdom and reproof upon his heart, as he hath never heard, mayhap.”
“But Master Lawrence meant kindly,” said Charity, and casting down her eyes, she continued, “if we cannot burn tallow-candles, we, at least, may have the light of dry sticks—shall I not gather more to keep light as thou tellest the plan thou hast? I would it could make our home cheery as good candle-light, and a salver of apples, with rinds all russet and red and yellow.”
“It were good thou hadst not seen the apples,” spoke the dame, querulously; “better still thou hadst not seen the boy.”
“But the plan, grandam—thou forgettest the plan. Is it that the famous chopper, Patrick Malony, is to come and fell one of the great hickory or maple trees of which the wood is full; and are we to have a huge log, and big, smoothly split sticks to fill the great empty fire-place every night with light and warmth; or meanest thou once more to saddle Lily-lace, the mare, and ride to the mill with a full bag of wheat; and am I to go to the market-town once more, in my black kirtle and straw hat, and bring home in exchange, for my basket of eggs, butcher’s meat to broil on the coals, and fragrant tea to fill the little china cups, with tobacco for thy long empty pipe—in faith, grandam, have I not guessed shrewdly?”
“My pretty darling, I see thou hast thy head filled with the wildest extravagance; thou wilt be teasing next for a farthingale of dimity, ruffles of lace, and blue ribbons for thy hat, or other such like gear. Thy guesses tally not with prudence, Charity; thou mayest guess again.”
“Ay, then,” said the girl, sorrowfully, “I was wrong from the saddling of Lily-face to the full pipe of tobacco;” and casting her eyes about the cold, empty room, she continued, with greater energy—“I have the very pith of thy thought. Thou wilt unlock the great chest, and take thence the dainty linen sheets and the thick wool blankets thy hands have wrought from fleece and flax, and make the bed—wherein we now shiver the night through, ridden with nightmares and plagued with ugly dreams—into beauty and comfort. Surely I have guessed thy plan, for the moth is more wasting than the wear.”
“Foolish child, thy extravagance would be the ruin of me, though I gave thee management of my affairs but for a day. Were the sheets of linen and blankets of wool to be used as thou sayest, the chest would soon be empty, and then how should we fare?”
“As well as now,” thought Charity, but she spoke not, save to say—“that she should guess no more.”
“Once more, little one,” and Margery patted the child on the head with one hand, and taking the great staff in the other, she stirred open the coals vigorously, and as the light flashed upon the girl’s cheek, tears, large and bright, were seen to stand there, like drops of dew on a lily.
But the old woman urged her to renew her guess with such earnestness and tenderness that, brushing away the tears, she essayed once again; but the fervor was gone from her tone, and the light from her glance, as she said—
“Thou hast planned the mending of the door and window, that the snow may not drive to great ridges across the floor, and the wind and the rain beat against us as we sleep.”
“Not so,” answered Margery. “While the winter blows the larger crevices may be stopped with straw, and the smaller ones with clay, both of which may be easily removed when the May Queen is dancing on the hills, and our house be the pleasanter for free air and streaks of sunshine.”
“It may all do very well,” said Charity, “but to-night I can see nothing so pleasant as great log-fires, tallow-candles, and a salver of red apples; and, mayhap, it would take Master Lawrence to complete the picture.”
“Burned not thy cheek to speak it?” continued Margery, peevishly: and the two wrought at the fleece for a time in silence.
“Thou knowest Lily-face?” said the ancient dame, at length, “that she groweth old and stiff of limb; thou canst not remember the time when she nibbled not in my pastures; I think belike, also, she fadeth in the sight of her right eye, for when, at the last Christmas time, I rode her to the mill, my old bones were jeopardized by her stumbling, and often turning of her head to one side, betrayed her defect of vision. But though she were sound as the silver coin that lieth in the bottom of the chest, yonder, I must needs barter her away, for that she eateth more than she earneth, since I may no more buckle round her the girth.
“Thou requirest much exercise in thy growing, Charity, to keep supple thy joints—thou canst sometimes walk to the market-town for our absolute wants, which are not many, and as for the wheat-grist, thou shalt have a mortar and beat it into flour; so Lily-face would but burden us now, and the corn and the oat-sheaves, and the hay that have been heaped in her manger, may be sold.
“One beast is enough for a poor body like me, and thou knowest I will neither barter nor sell Wolf-slayer till the time cometh for the nailing of the boards to my coffin. And forget not, Charity, that they lie in the loft, well-seasoned for the using, and for thy life, let them not buy others in their stead.”
“Far away be the time, good grandam,” sighed the girl. “But the young die, too; and should I need them first, wilt thou not keep a light, at least of fagots, the whiles I am dead in the house?”
Foolish child! though it were darker than tempest may make it, and I the while slept never so sound, no harm could come to thy white corse, if Wolf-slayer lay by thy coffin.
At the sound of her name, a great black beast, with eyes burning like coals, and lean and shaggy, crept from the darkest corner of the room, and laying her head in the lap of Margery, licked her jaws and whined piteously. “Away with thee, saucy image,” growled the mistress, “thou hadst the third part of a corn-ear at the sunset, and thinkest thou, black wench, I will give thee more?” and crouching and whining the hungry beast slunk back to the corner, and curling herself together, filled the room presently with her snore.
“Poor Lily-face!” said the child, speaking as it were to herself, “how can I let thee go! Morning and evening, since I could toddle, I have put my arms around thy glossy neck, broken the ears of corn into small bits, and pressed the golden oat-sheaves through thy manger—and thou hast neighed and put thy face against mine, for thou lovest me, as I thee. Poor Lily-face! I cannot let thee go!”
“What if thou mightst look in the corner here and see the bright, shining face of a pretty clock instead of the cobwebs and the hanks of yarn—if thou couldst hear the pleasant tick, and ever and anon the musical ring of the hours—a clock, bethink thee, bright of color as the autumn oak-leaves, and tall as thy grandam.”
“It would be pretty and comforting, surely,” said the child, “for the ticking and the stroke of the hours would be company in the lonesome nights, but I would not give Lily-face, that knows me when I speak, and looks at me and loves me, to have a clock bright as the oaken autumn leaves, and tall as thou, grandam, in place of the hanks of yarn and the cobwebs.”
“Thou knowest not thy own mind,” said Dame Margery; “the clock will neither eat nor drink, but will tell us the time of day and night; which Lily-face hath not wit to do. By the light of the last sunset, I have no mind that she shall longer stamp in that stall of hers.
“The miller hath a clock,” she continued, “which ticked at his grandfather’s funeral, and hath kept the time of many funerals, and marriages, too, since; a pretty piece of mechanism, as I saw with my own eyes, and taller than I; and the miller wanteth the mare for the tread-wheel, and to have her his own, will barter the pretty clock.”
“It must be as thou sayest, but I have little pleasure in the plan,” said Charity. “Hath not the miller a milch cow that he would barter in place of the clock?”
“Thou growest officious,” answered the dame. “Would not the cow eat oats and corn as well as Lily-face? And have we not hitherto drunken water and flourished, and must we needs have milk?”
Charity spoke no more, but sat turning the wheel for pastime—for the fleece was finished, and the mind of the dame was not to be altered by childish fancies, as was manifest from her rising and removing the hanks of yarn to another peg, and brushing with her hand the cobwebs.
The wind kept moaning along the woods and rattled the broken door and window—the coals grew fainter and fainter and died, and the gray ashes blew over the feet of Margery and the child as they sat silently musing—the one of the pretty clock that it would cost nothing to keep, the other of poor Lily-face; haply at times there came a thought of the log-fire and the tallow-candles, and the salver of red apples which Master Lawrence had served with such a sweet grace.
The next day came the miller, and wrapt in a great bed-quilt and laid in the bottom of his cart was the clock. Margery clapt her hands in glee when she saw it, but Charity sighed as she sat close on the hearth-stone for the sake of its little warmth, though she felt not the cold now. Faster and faster spun round the wheel, and lower and lower she bowed down her head to conceal the tears—but it would not do. When she heard the neigh of poor Lily-face, and knew that her hands would never feed her any more, she hurried to the window, and pressing her face against the pane, she could see her dear pet shrinking consciously from the hand that tied the strong rope about her neck and led her away. Margery was busy with dusting the bright face of her pretty clock, and looked not forth even when the long-drawn howl of Wolf-slayer (who, lifting her fore paws on the clapboard gate, manifested her sorrow as a dumb brute may) smote dismally upon her ears.
The days came and went and Charity spun on the same, but Margery brought forth no new fleece. Scarcely had she stirred or spoken since the treasure came—even when the girl heaped on dry sticks and broken branches till the warmth filled all the house, she did not reprove.
Then Charity bethought her that the old dame had scarcely tasted food for days, and looking upon her, she saw that her eyes waxed dim and her countenance pale, and a great fear came over the child’s heart; and setting aside her wheel, she ran fast to farmer Jocelin’s, and begged a cup of honey and a pitcher of sweet milk, telling of the strange disorder that possessed Dame Margery.
As she went homeward, Master Lawrence ran from his work in the field and bore the pitcher of milk, and comforted her with hopes that her grandam was less ill than she feared.
Without question Margery partook of the milk and honey; and when Lawrence brought sticks and logs and heaped the fire, she laid her withered hand on his head and said, “Thou art a kind boy and good.” She then took a key from her bosom and told Charity to unlock the chest and bring forth blankets—as many as would keep her warm.
“Surely, grandam, thou art distraught,” said Charity, as she hastened to obey. But the sweet smile of intelligence that met her inquiring glance belied her fears; and as she wrapt the warm covering about the withered form, she said, “Nay, child, I am sane at last—but too late.”
At midnight she ceased to speak or to be conscious. Kind hands presently removed the thick covering, and spread over her a dainty white sheet; but she was warm enough; others brought from the loft the boards of seasoned walnut wood, and the next midnight Charity and Wolf-slayer—the one at the head and the other at the feet, watched by the old dame’s coffin.
The following day came the miller with Lily-face harnessed in his little cart; he went forward, and a train of neighbors followed—amongst them Charity, sorrowfulest of all.
When the summer came, she planted bright blossoming shrubs about the grave, and never in her life had Margery half so pretty a house as this narrow one.
The old house was given up to the rats and the winds, after the removal of the cheat, and the clock, and the hanks of yarn that hung all along the rafters. In course of time it fell into a heap; and one day, as Charity, who dwelt not far away, sat on the heap of stones where the hearth-stone had been, she saw a fair-faced youth searching up and down the lanes, over the meadows, and through the hedges hard-by, as though he missed something; but when he saw the girl, he left searching and bent his steps toward her, and as he came near she knew him for Master Lawrence—well grown, but with something of the boyish look and manners yet. The prettiest of all the lambs of the flock was gone, and though he had gone over all the pastures, he could not find it. The heart of Charity was touched, and leaving her sorrowful musing, she joined in the search.
Whether the stray lamb was found I know not, but as Charity crossed the fields to go homeward under the twilight’s reddening wing, her hair was full of daffodils and daisies, and a flush of wildering happiness was on her cheek, that had never been there before.
When the harvest was gathered and the orchard fruits weighing down the boughs, Charity rode to the market-town on a pretty brown jennet of her own; and as she went homeward the horns of her saddle were hung with great bundles; she had bought a white ribbon instead of a blue for the new straw hat her fingers had been braiding so busily—a muslin gown, that was white, too; a pair of pretty slippers, and a dozen other things that I have not time to enumerate—enough, that the next full moon shone upon Mistress Lawrence Jocelin.
Not a village maiden that would not have envied her but for her own happiness, for all joined in the merry-making; a dozen tallow-candles were burned at once, and more than one salver of red apples was served round, with loaf-cakes and sweetmeats, and ripe broken nuts. Workmen were employed to clear away the rubbish that had once been Dame Margery’s house, and a pretty new cottage soon rose in its place; and the next summer sweet shrubbery hedged it in, and myrtles and honeysuckles curtained the windows; bees made honey from the flowers, sleek cattle fed in the pastures, and in all the neighborhood there was no home so full of comfort and plenty.
The hanks of yarn which Charity had spun long ago were taken to the weaver’s and came back in rolls of damask and bright-flowered carpets; the linen was taken from the chest, and the wool blankets; and after being washed white as snow, and dried in the sun, were spread upon beds soft as down could make.
When the second winter came round, the cottage was a-glow with wood-fires and tallow-candles; and in place of the starved Wolf-slayer, there lay before the hearth, in a cradle of white willows, the plumpest and fairest baby that ever Lawrence and Charity Jocelin had seen.
THE PHANTOM FIELD.
———
BY O. I. VICTOR.
———
The snow lies deep upon the ground,
All icy is the air;
The trees a winding-sheet have found
By the wild wind’s care.
The beast stands trembling in his shed—
The sheep within his fold:
Without, all life is stiff and dead—
Within, all chill and cold.
Why is the air so cold to-night?
The owl shrinks in his nest!
Why does the moon gleam out so bright?
The traveler is at rest!
O, keen the wind and cold the air
Above the Phantom Field!
Yet ghostly forms are stalking there,
Armed with a sword and shield.
And gathering slow in serried rank,
They turn toward the west:
Five thousand coffins guard each flank—
Five hundred stand abreast.
In battle rank, with noiseless tread,
They hurry to the height,
Where stand ten thousand other dead,
Uncoffined for the fight.
O, cold the wind and keen the air
Around the Phantom Height!
Yet spectre men are battling there
In fierce, exultant fight.
And shields are rent, and swords are bent,
And limbs bestrew the ground,
Yet skeletons, with strength unspent,
Strike where a breast is found.
And skulls are cleft on right and left
Till shines the morn o’erhead—
Till twice five thousand coffins stand
Alone, flanking the dead.
O, keen the wind and cold the air
That sweeps above the plain!
Yet must the hollow coffins bear
The skeletons again.
O’er the silent field they haste,
To gather limb and bone:
Though skulls and limbs are wide displaced,
Each coffin knows its own.
Soon every limb is gathered in—
Soon every lid is fast—
And falling into rank again
They turn toward the East.
And marching o’er the frozen plain,
With swift and gliding tread,
They stand beside the graves again
Where sleep the evil dead.
Two death’s-heads stand above each mound;
A fearful watch they keep!
The coffins sink into the ground,
Another year to sleep.
But when another year is fled—
When comes St. Stephen’s night,
The death’s-heads shall unloose their dead
To battle on the height.
And when five hundred years have passed,
The penance shall be done;
The skeletons shall sleep at last,
And moulder, limb and bone.
SHAKSPEARE.
———
BY ERASTUS W. ELLSWORTH.
———
What more extolling from the tongue of Fame
Can Shakspeare need than his suggested name;
Who, in a volume so compactly writ,
Has hived the honey of all human wit.
Praise suits where merit in a corner lies,
But seems uncomely to th’acknowledged wise—
Praise suits where laboring art at times succeeds,
And the shrewd reader pardons as he reads;
But fails—in wonder—where the leaves dispense
Infinite resource of intelligence—
Where the great player, at his game of chess,
Frolicks through all to glorious success;
Thrids, with exulting ken, a boundless maze,
Plays with his kings, and kings it in his plays.
Swan of the Avon—genius of the Thames,
“That so didst take Eliza and [king] James;”
Muse of so vast a flight, so ample pinion,
Whose name is as the name of a dominion!
Though kings be great, give glory to the pen,
A whole-souled poet is the king of men.
King and high-priest one bard, at least, has been
Lo! where we lesser Levites pause and quail.
How grandly goes before, within the vail,
Our great Melchisedek, without compeers,
Without progenitor nor end of years.
THE MASTER’S MATE’S YARN.
———
BY H. MILNOR KLAPP.
———
(Concluded from page 539.)
“They—the rats, of course—were a strange, heathenish set, and no respecters of persons, but first chased the cat on shore, and then made a hurra’s nest of the cabin—polishing their long whiskers with spermaceti—planning surprise-parties in the pantry—running to’gallant races over your nose in the sleeping-berths, and gauging every hollow vessel in the ship, with tails a fathom long, from the oil-casks and the scuttle-butt down to the pickle-jars and the captain’s barrel of New England. They were a sleek, long-bodied race, as black as imps of darkness, and as fearless as if they possessed as many reputed lives as grimalkin herself. I was weary of watching their capers, and of the sound of Catherton’s tread, expecting him every moment to call me up; when turning in my berth, I noticed that the after-cabin door was standing open. While I was wondering at this, a feeling of awe stole over me, thinking of the conversation I had overheard among the men the night before, and that very moment, as I was looking intently at the spot, a figure in white passed swiftly and silently out of the store-room into the cabin, closing the door behind it. I would afterward have given worlds to have been able to pursue it, but could not, for the power to move a limb was dead for the time being, and I lay still staring after it, with mouth agape and the cold drops on my forehead, palsied, as it would seem, by that sort of instinctive abhorrence with which humanity revolts against a disembodied spirit that has assumed, for some mysterious end, the form and garniture of its house of clay. It was a woman’s shape—the head bare, and the long dark hair hanging down to the waist, and, before the door closed, the light for an instant flickered on the face, ghastly and white—as the man-of-war’s man had said—with the mouth closed and the lips drawn tightly in. Its back was toward my berth, until it turned into the after-cabin, and it seemed to me that it had something clutched in its hand; but the hollow look of the sunken eyes froze my very heart’s blood, as they glared back at the lamp, from behind the bloodless and bony cheek. I was first roused from my trance by the sound of some one coming down the companion-way, and it was not until Catherton had thrice called me, laying his hand upon my shoulder, the third time, that I started at last to my feet, when he must have noticed my looks, as I still stared past him at the cabin-door.
“ ‘It wants but a few moments of the time, Mr. Miller,’ was all he said, and if I had died for it, I could not have answered, but huddling on my clothes in silence, mechanically followed him on deck. All was there as still as death. The moon had not yet risen, and you heard the sound of the ebb plashing against the Tartar’s bows, and rippling and gurgling in the eddies astern, as it swept through the strait.
“ ‘The watch are asleep in the galley,’ the captain whispered, as I prepared to go over the side; ‘you remember the place and the signal—a plover’s whistle twice repeated?’
“Nodding my head, I descended into the canoe; he cast off the warp, and keeping in the shade of the ship, with my brain in a whirl, I paddled close to the starboard shore. I had little time to think, for the current ran strongly round the points, and I seemed blindly impelled by the hand of fate to stem its force, even while my frame still shook like a frightened child’s.
“I had hardly a thought of my purpose; nevertheless, instinctively plying my paddle, I passed through the passage, and reached the rift of sand under the castle without being challenged.
“High above me, concealed from my eyes by the rocky steep, was the stronghold where, according to report, the sultan kept both his harem and his treasures. The danger, in some measure, restored my presence of mind, and the canoe had hardly hung for a moment on the hot, glassy tide, when I heard the signal, and immediately upon my answering it, an Arab arose from the sand, and two others appeared coming hastily down a narrow gully, along which a sort of causeway ran from the stables of the sultan’s stud to the beach. Seeing more figures than I had been taught to expect, as another appeared from behind a rock, leading two saddled horses, I was about to back farther off, when the chief’s voice called out to me in a low tone to be quick, and forcing the bow of the canoe upon the sand, not another word was exchanged, until Halil had placed the slender form of the Circassian, vailed as she was from head to foot, under the awning.
“The chief then seized my hand and carried it to his head, pointing with his right in the direction of the ship.
“Wishing him ‘God speed,’ I wrung his hand; he pushed off the canoe, and I paddled round for the ship. Glancing back, I saw him spring into the saddle, with one attendant, both sitting as motionless as statues while the canoe kept them in sight.
“Heavily armed, and mounted on a splendid charger, from what I knew of his strength and spirit, it struck me forcibly that in his present enterprise he was more than a match for most men. There was little chance, however, of the conspiracy succeeding, unless the assassination of the sultan were the first overt act, as he was greatly beloved by his people. However, I had previously understood that the Oualé of Muscat, and all the principal chiefs at Moutrah—the last a considerable town in the vicinity—were implicated, which showed that the party of the old Imaum, the sultan’s deceased uncle, was much more extensive than I had ever deemed.
“It was not with thoughts like these that I approached the ship, for the recent horror oppressed me so strongly, that I hardly knew what I was doing when the captain received Zuma from my arms at the stern-post. After this I fastened the canoe in its place, and looking, as it were by the mere force of habit, into the binnacle, found that I had been absent but twelve minutes. I then went for’ard where the two fellows who held the anchor-watch were sleeping soundly. As I kicked them up, the old carpenter came out of the steerage, rubbing his eyes, and muttering imprecations on the rats.
“ ‘They’re a considerable spry set, Mister Miller,’ said he, as I made some remark to divert his attention, ‘and, cuss me, if I half like the ways on ’em—rattlin’ past my berth atween decks, as if every beggar on ’em had shoes on his feet, and turnin’ the’r varmentish heads to listen, with more life in the slack of their tails than there is wit in the for’ard part of the ship. They comed aboard, sir, in my opinion, at an island where the ship touched on the Japan coast, and jist tuk full command of the ship at once, trampoosin’ her from the ground-tier to the tops, and crawlin’ out of the bunts of the old courses, when sail was made at daylight, or jumpin’ from the boats, when a rush was made to lower away. Hows’iver,’ he added, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, without which he was never seen on deck in these latitudes, ‘I hope, sir, they’ll stick to the ship, if it’s only for luck’s sake.’ As he said this he gave me an oblique glance of his cold, fishy eye, and then looked earnestly at the bowl of his pipe, fussing with a paper of cut tobacco.
“In the humor which I was in at the time, the most trifling incident that occurred in the ship seemed to leave an impression upon my mind never to be forgotten; however, I was not to be sounded by old Charley Toppin, cunning as he thought himself; so I answered him at random: ‘I hope not, carpenter; and as for luck—why—’
“ ‘Hist! sir,’ interrupted he, in a startled voice, pointing aft—‘what tale does that tell?’
“Turning quickly round, I saw them dropping from the poop by the dozens—one steady plump! plump! plump! till the deck was black with them, creeping in a living mass on the forecastle, down the cable, as it seemed, into the water, where we could see them swimming for the island across a broad patch of starlight, until the last of them disappeared. Captain Catherton was standing aft, looking at the frigate through his night-glass. He never stirred, and, as I thought, did not notice them. The sight seemed to shake old Kennebunk wonderfully.
“ ‘Mister Miller,’ said he fearfully, ‘this be a doomed craft.’
“ ‘You’re wrong,’ said I, ‘they’re swimming off to the shore to fill their stomachs with something green, if they can find it. They’ll be back presently, and then, if you cover the hatchways, you can call all hands to a rat-hunt.’
“The carpenter looked at me, and then at the poop, significantly enough; a look of intelligence suddenly crossed his blank, weather-beaten face, as he moved close to my side, with his hand to his mouth and his eye still fixed aft: ‘Do you know, sir,’ he whispered, bending his brows and looking me hard in the face, ‘do you know who are your shipmates in this here craft?’
“At that moment the captain called out in his deep, calm voice, and I went up on the poop, where, pointing to the frigate, which lay now within half a pistol shot of us, outside of the passage, he put the glass in my hands, without saying a word. The first look I took through the instrument explained his meaning. The frigate’s starboard broadside was sprung to bear on us, and the long tiers of guns frowning full upon the ship. They were even lighting their battle-lanterns, and groups of turbans and pointed caps were visible in every part of the upper deck.
“I dropped the glass from my eye and looked at my companion.
“ ‘I understand it,’ said he composedly, in reply to my look—‘wait a couple of hours longer, and the scene will change. In the meantime come below, and let us have a glass of grog.’
“He swept the harbor carefully with his glass, dwelling some time on the landing-place, which is at the mouth of a drain, or sort of canal; the town itself being hidden from our sight by the lofty castle-crowned crags to the north and east. The Soliman Shah, after changing her old berth, had anchored off Fisher’s rock, a small islet lying off the north point of Muscat Island.
While Catherton was thus engaged, the thought of what Halil and the rest of the conspirators could be doing at that moment, together with my adventures that night, whirled a confused crowd of images before my mind, in the midst of which black Hadji’s face was preëminent. The stories which I had heard of his craft and cruelty occurred to me so strongly that it was a relief when the captain closed his glass with a snap, and led the way to the cabin.
“ ‘Steward,’ said he to the mulatto, who seemed to make it a rule never to be caught in his hammock when his master was up, ‘set out the liquor-case, and a bottle of that old Bourbon whisky we got out of the Frenchman—and then be off to your roost.’
The fellow obeyed in his usual deferential way, and placing a lighted joshstick and a bundle of sheroots on the table withdrew.
“ ‘To-morrow,’ said Catherton, ‘we’ll tow out into the bight of the current, go how things may; and here,’ he added, pouring out a tumbler of grog, and pushing me the bottle, ‘here’s good-bye, forever and a day, to the key of the Persian Gulf.’
“I pledged him accordingly, and he went on in a very frank, easy way, I thought, considering the case in which we stood.
“ ‘A troublesome coast this to clear, Mr. Miller; the currents hereabouts are as treacherous as the heart of woman. Why,’ said he, seeming a good deal at his ease, as he poured out another glass, though I was in the other case, my eye stealing to the cabin doors in spite of me, ‘I’ve been drifted in this old ship forty miles in-shore, in a thick fog and a calm, between sunset and dawn, and no signs of a set on the surface any more than there is on this deck.’
“ ‘Yes, sir,’ said I, compelling my attention to answer him, ‘in clear weather they keep you continually taking observations—and in a fog, as you say, why—’
“ ‘Try that case-bottle of Bourbon whisky,’ interrupted he, ‘you don’t seem to relish the brandy. Here’s to the sultan! And may he wake up to-night in Paradise.’
“Here he went on in a discursive way to talk of the cholera, saying that he had had a touch of it himself on the Malabar coast.
“ ‘However,’ said he, filling up his glass a third time, ‘hang care—here’s luck!’
“ ‘The fact is, Mr. Miller,’ he continued, setting down his glass, ‘I’ve taken a great fancy to you, during the little time we’ve been together. If it lasts out to the end, depend upon me, I’ll put something handsome in your way.’
“I bowed over my glass without speaking, and he kept on in the same confidential manner, as if he made up his mind to see how we stood at once.
“ ‘I’ve made one prime voyage for my present owners in these seas, and this one—mark you—I intend for myself. Now I want a friend whom I can trust, body and soul, and, if I am not far out of my reckoning, you are the very man.’
“I met his sharp, scrutinizing glance as he said this, and remembering the carpenter’s words in the galley, I now felt sure that the captain had some scheme of villainy in his head in which he wished me to become a partner. There was the more reason to be careful of the grog, since I could not mistake his manner, and the sharp, sinister look full as deep as the occasion called for, whatever that might be. However, I thought it best to affect to do so, and answered accordingly, that I had no fears of further trouble with the crew when we were once clear of the coast.
“His fierce eyes watched mine as a tiger might a stag’s, and with a dark smile which seemed to say, ‘You’re a deep one, I see.’ He nodded his head and touched his glass again. Still he seemed to hesitate, and to be fast losing his self-possession, as if either the liquor he had drank, or something in the way I received his first hint, had flustered him. I did not think at the time that he doubted me, either; so I sat still, smoking my sheroot, and watching the traces of irresolution gleaming across his sun-seared face, until, making a strong effort to control himself, he suddenly asked if I was a married man. On my replying in the negative, he tacked ship again, asking me if I ever read poetry, alluding particularly to Moore’s Lallah Rookh.
“ ‘I don’t care a rope’s end for the Veiled Prophet or Nourmahal,’ he said, while I wondered again what he was driving at, ‘but I always admired certain descriptive parts of the Fire-Worshipers, which I always thought Byron must have touched up for Moore—for instance
‘—’Mid damp and gloom and crash of boughs,
And fall of loosened crops that rouse
The leopard from his hungry sleep,
Who, starting, thinks each crag a prey,
And long is heard, from steep to steep,
Chasing them down their thundering way.’
“ ‘Muscat, you know,’ continued he, ‘is the poet’s Oman.’
“ ‘Yes,’ I answered, hardly knowing what to say, ‘and a wretched place enough it is, in spite of Moore’s fancy.’
“ ‘Why,’ he said, still beating the bush about me, ‘there is some difference between the sultan’s palace, plain as its outside is, and the emir’s porphyry walls which the little Irish nightingale sang about—not so much though, to my mind, as between a merchant dreaming of a full cargo to-night, and waking to hear of a wrecked ship and no insurance in the morning—ay, or a captain making two good voyages and finding himself still in debt—ay, deep as the fathomless sea in debt—to his owners.’
“ ‘That, I suppose, you would call a species of blank-verse, Captain Catherton,’ said I.
“ ‘Ay,’ he answered, with a fierce, tiger-like gleam of his dark eyes, ‘but the beauty of the thing is, this cargo will balance accounts, and it’s a long back stretch from ‘Oman’s green water’ to the sandy shores of Bedford Bay.’
“This was starting the devil with a vengeance, so I determined that he should show his purpose clearly before I gave any reply to the hints he had thrown out.
“ ‘Captain Catherton,’ said I, fixing my eyes firmly upon him, ‘I am no greenhorn to rush into any man’s schemes blindfolded. If you wish my services in any thing that is to my taste, you must speak out.’
“He emptied his glass again, in a way which showed that he was hardly sensible of the action, and, ‘Mr. Miller,’ said he, ‘there is that about you which reminds me of old days, and that, perhaps, is one reason I’ve taken a fancy to you. It doesn’t matter a rope-yarn whether you join me or not; my mind is fixed to its course. You shall hear the whole, however, and judge for yourself before you decide—which is more than I would care to reveal to any other man that breathes.’ He flung his sheroot on the deck as he spoke, and mechanically setting his foot upon it, bared his sinewy arm to the elbow, in the lamp-light. ‘Do you see those initials?’ he said, in a tone of unnatural calmness. Sure enough there they were—his wife’s, I had no doubt—E. S. B., dotted in India ink, and two hearts, worked one within the other, under them. As I looked in his face for the explanation which was to follow, I saw that it was fearfully changed; and although his eyes met mine, at first steadily enough, a strange sort of a spasm contorted the muscles of his jaw, as if he looked, as it were, through me at some horrible sight, with his teeth set, and his thin nether lip drawn tightly in. The truth, or at least an inkling of it, I had had already from the second mate, and in spite of the terrible doubts in my mind, and the rascally scheme he had hinted at, I confess I could not help feeling somewhat softened toward the man. Perhaps he noticed this in my looks, for, with a shivering sigh, he placed his elbows on the table, and covering his eyes with his hands, although not a groan or a moan escaped from his lips, I knew by the tears which forced their way through his fingers, and the quiver of his strong frame, that some hard struggle was going on. I sat still in pure wonder at this sudden outbreak of feeling—the initials, as it were, staring me full in the face, and the man’s damp forehead, with its mass of dark curls within reach of my hand—until a strange thought that I had seen him before in some old, familiar place, came slowly thrilling into mind. Where this might have been I could not, at the moment, conjecture; but as he removed his hands and I looked anxiously at his features, I felt almost sure that it had been years before, in some scene of summer-revelry, with trees and horses in front, and woman’s soft eyes on the background. Perhaps it was the altered look of Catherton himself, which brought the last into my mind in the cabin of the old Tartar, to be associated in some unaccountable way with that tall, muscular frame, and that dark, gloomy face, frowning as if ashamed of his emotion, though it might be, the tears had done him good. At any rate, the idea oppressed me so forcibly that, before he composed himself to speak again, I glanced nervously round the cabin, taking in every object as well as I could by the smoky light—from the state-rooms, on the larboard side, with their musty, sickening smell, to the rack in the recess between the cabin doors, and thence from the starboard ones up to the chart-rack and the broad transom, where the two models, one of a whale-ship, the other of a first-rate, both made of a sperm whale’s jaw—guns, boats, spars, and even the miniature brail-blocks, all fashioned out of glistening white bone, were resting on their mimic ways. Of course I saw nothing there to account for the impression, faint as it grew again while I gazed, and half deeming it the delusive trace of some forgotten likeness, or of something which I had read of or dreamed, I turned my eyes again upon Captain Catherton.
“ ‘Mr. Miller,’ said the man, as calmly as if he were sitting at home, it might be, in his nursery, his wife within reach of a whisper, and something in the subdued, moist look of his eyes in devilish accordance with the drowsy quiet of a domestic scene, ‘we are not all as philosophic as Cato—nor as vile as the man made immortal in infamy by Horace—non omnibus dormis—you remember the satires.’
“As I stared again at this, a forlorn ghost of a smile flitted over his face, and with his next breath the mystery of the thing vanished. I have often wondered since what it was that kept me fixed to my seat like stone; perhaps it was the reflection that my own accursed folly had been the wreck of us three—him, the wretch—myself, and her—perhaps it was the awful suddenness of the shock which stunned me like a heavy blow; I cannot say; but stifling the groan which rose to my lips as the horrible truth flashed upon me, while the very air seemed to thicken before my gaze, and his words to come with terrible distinctness through the gloom, I sat still on my seat and heard him out.
“ ‘I was born,’ he said, ‘at the village of ——, a few miles from Philadelphia, and abandoned my home, like a fledged petrel, as soon as I could comprehend the map of the world with its thousand ports and its endless stretch of sea. It is a strange thing, Mr. Miller, this young fancy of ours for being blown about by the wild winds, and rocked out of a life of ease by the cunning waves of the deep. To my mind there was once nothing so joyous in life as the roar of the gale at its height, when you slid from the top of a sea to the trough—the dripping dash of a head sea on the prow—or the rush of cleft waters astern, as you sat conning the chart.’ Little did that careful old pedagogue dream, as, day after day he chuckled over my progress in this department of knowledge, what restless longings disturbed the breast of his pupil, like the instinct of the unfledged albatross when it hears the sound of the sea from its nest on some sheltering cliff.
“ ‘It was but last night,’ he continued, in a tone of melancholy widely at variance with the usual sound of his voice, ‘that I dreamed of the old man—his thin, white hairs brushed back from his brow—his spectacles set straight on his nose, as he traced out on the revolving globe the voyages of Columbus and Vasco de Gama, pausing, with his rod stayed at some particular point, to enlarge on the daring spirit of each. It was little wonder that I early yearned for the sea; and yet, as I afterward learned, great was his astonishment, not unmixed with chagrin akin to remorse, when he found that I had cut and run. However,’ he said, putting his hand to his forehead, ‘we met again, and the matter was thoroughly cleared up between us.’
“Here he paused in thought, his eyes fixed in a troubled way on my face, while the changes wrought by time and the sea seemed to disappear from his own, and I wondered that I ever could have been so blind as not to have known him at once: a triple sense of condemnation oppressed me; and the soft eyes and the sweet face came vividly up, until I actually shuddered to think, as the whole name, Ellen Symington Blount, was as plain as day; what terrible tale which linked her fate with his might be still lurking behind. I could well understand, too, his allusion to Lallah Rookh, which was her favorite poem, and how it was that he had no recollection of me, having never seen me but once, and that for a moment by starlight. Old Charley’s riddle was read, though it was hard to tell how he became master of it, and stifling my feelings as I best could, I awaited in silence for the captain to resume.
“His eyes dropped to the floor, where the rats were again creeping about unheeded: presently they scampered off, and I heard the hasty pit-pat of naked feet as one of the anchor-watch came aft to the binnacle, when the ship’s bell struck one. The stroke was instantly followed by a clang from the Arab frigate, and then by a sort of stir, which loomed up as it were on the sultry gloom of night, in the midst of which you seemed to hear the cries of the sentries on shore, calling from tower to tower, through the pestilential air; and when these died away, with the nearer echoes of the bells in the harbor, you heard again the sound of the man’s feet pattering along the deck, as if he, too, had paused to listen before rejoining his watch-mate, who perhaps, like myself, was spinning some old yarn.
“When all was still again, the silence seemed to press on my ears like the distant splurge of a tide, while the lamp drowsed and the rats crept to Catherton’s very feet, scuttling off, however, as soon as he stirred, breaking abruptly out of his reverie.
“ ‘I made a trading voyage round the globe, and returning to the village twenty-six months after I left it, was received like one from the dead. I was bent upon giving old Blount, the schoolmaster, a surprise—as much so, it seems to me now, as if I had run away from school for that sole end.
“ ‘Accordingly, I was out of the stage and bang into his garden, where he sat smoking his pipe, with his back toward the walk, before he had the least notion of what had turned up.
“ ‘Hillo! old ship! What cheer?’ said I, and round he swung to my hail, dropping his merschaum and staring at me in the summer-twilight, as I stood rigged out in a full suit of blue, swinging my cynet-hat, until I could stand it no longer, but just broke out into my old laugh, which brought his daughter tripping out from the back-porch, when, of course, the recognition took place. After the old man was over the heat of his surprise, and I took time to notice that Ellen had grown, in proportion, quite as much as myself, and how beautiful she was—and that she had been the first to divine that I had gone to sea—my heart beat quickly again with a feeling strange as sweet, and somehow I was not so much shocked as I might have been, when her father, taking off his spectacles and sobering his face, informed me that my uncle had died a year before. To be sure, I had never known a parent’s care, and Colonel Catherton, living as he did, almost alone with his books, was a man rather to be feared than loved by a child. Besides, I cannot remember ever to have had strong feelings for a human being before I became aware of my attachment to Ellen. I rather loved to lie behind some hill which shut out all but the sky from view, and dream of the sea—or to sit under the lee of the woods in a gale, with a book of voyages in my hand, intent upon scenes of battle and wreck, with the last year’s leaves under my feet, and the wild roar in my ears.
“ ‘It was in the whole stock, and, in fact, I have heard that my father and two of my uncles, at different times, had all been lost at sea. However, the colonel, who had been a great merchant in his time, had left some property—not so much though as was supposed from his style of living—and as I was his only heir, they persuaded me from taking another cruise until the estate was settled. This, of course, only left me leisure to fall all the deeper in love—the rock, Mr. Miller, on which, it seems, the gentlest as well as the roughest of us must split. Many were the consultations I had with old Blount, and strongly he urged me to settle at home as a professional man, never dreaming—old proser as he was—that the thing was too deeply grained in, ever to be coaxed out, even by Ellen’s eyes. The upshot of it was that I remained at home for two years longer, until the property was sold, doing nothing but reading nautical works and growing more and more enamored of Ellen. There was a soul in that girl’s voice like the sound of the surf as it breaks upon some enchanted shore, off which it might be, you lay waiting for day to dawn—a spell in her dark eyes more like the ideal dreams of old, than the influence of woman over man in these degenerate days. If ever mortal had fair excuse for anchoring his faith on the sandheads of—but, excuse me, Mr. Miller, they are all of a piece, as you may have discovered before this—some one says to be rated only by their different capacities for mischief.
‘Helen laid thousands on the shelf,
Dido only burned herself:
As Helen’s beauty was the rarer,
Her claim to mischief was the fairer—
A rule in courts that firm hath stood
Before and ever since the flood.’ ’
“As he ran on in this wild way, eating his heart, as it were, in sheer desperation of feeling, something in my look, as I felt my soul struggling to rise against the mendacious wretch, sent him from his vile sneers and accursed Hudibrastic lines, back to his narrative. Garbled and imperfect as that was, I was mad to hear it to the end; for while bitterly rueing the ruin which my own folly had wrought, I could not help burning to know by what damnable arts or eloquence she had ever been persuaded to yield her hand to him.
“His eyes sunk before mine and he moved restlessly on his seat as a sound, so like to a sigh that it made me start, came apparently from the door of the closed state-room; it might have been the Circassian—or the rats in their ramblings—and drinking off a brimmer of grog, he resumed in a different tone.
“ ‘At the end of the time I spoke of, the old man fell sick, and somehow his friends had dropped off, so that I spent most of my time almost alone with him. At last he consented that we should be married at his bedside. He had been growing weaker day by day, and I was the more anxious for the match, as his house was close to a place of fashionable resort, and Ellen had, somehow or other, become acquainted with some of the young blades from the city. There was some talk about her and one of them, while I was absent on a tour to the great lakes, that had like to have set me mad on my return. However, the youngster—who was, by all accounts, to the full as deeply in love and as fiery as myself, besides being, at least, my equal in fortune and connexions—had got himself involved in a quarrel with an acquaintance about this same report, which, in the end, sent one man to his grave and the other out of the country. As the duel made a great noise in the city, I determined to marry Ellen privately, and to remove from the village altogether as soon as her father died.
“ ‘Well,’ continued he, in a husky tone, ‘the thing was done, and when we rose from our knees, after the prayer, the old man was dead. We had no idea that he was so near his end, and I leave you to imagine, Mr. Miller, the horror of my bridal-night.
“ ‘However, when this was over, and we were alone together in the world, Ellen seemed to cling the closer to me, and it was not long, as you may suppose, before we left —— behind. I directed my course to Boston where I had made arrangements to enter into business with an old shipmate, a son of one of the firm in whose employ I had sailed on my first voyage. In the course of a few weeks I found myself comfortably settled at last, with most of my funds invested in the purchase of a ship and a brig, engaged in a trade to the Spanish Main. I commanded the ship myself, and for several years things went well—when by the villainy of my partner, suddenly as a whirlwind strips a ship, the house went by the board. After this I commanded vessels on the African and Brazil coasts, until the last ship was sold to a whaling house at New Bedford. I had agreed to deliver her into her new owners’ hands, and, as my wife’s health was rather unsettled at the time, I took her with me for the sake of the jaunt. It was then that I received offers from the man who had purchased the ship, which first directed my attention to this particular service. It was true that I knew nothing of the business, and had a sailor’s prejudice against it; but the man treated us with such considerate kindness, and made me offers so tempting to a broken man, pointing out how easily the difficulties might be obviated in time, and enlarging on the importance of having good navigators in the Indian seas, that, in an evil hour, I consented to take charge of my old ship.
“ ‘I removed from the hotel to a house in the upper part of the town, and after making the necessary arrangements for a protracted absence, and three weeks from the time I went into the Wisemans’ employ, I found myself at sea. The first voyage—and it was a short one, not exceeding a twelvemonth—put me up to the business, and investing all I had cleared in the ship, after a stay of six weeks on shore, leaving my wife to mingle in the best society which the place could afford, I put again to sea. It was on the homeward bound passage, in a full ship, after an absence of little more than fifteen months, that within a degree or two of the line I spoke a clean ship, with letters on board from my wife and the owners. Before I could board her, however, we were separated by a sudden squall, and night coming on lost sight of her altogether. We did not see her again, and it was when giving way to some natural vexation at the accident that I received the first intimation from Mr. Jinney, my mate, of the secret intimacy which had long existed between Ellen and the younger Wiseman. The man’s tale was a straight one, corroborated by several circumstances too trivial for notice at the moment of their occurrence, yet of sufficient importance, when taken together in connection with his story, to darken the past and cast an ominous shadow over the time to come.
“ ‘Though I had thought to strike her dead at first sight, with the stretch of sea between us, yet old ocean, wiser than a thousand graybeards, played the soother again, even in this great sorrow—the faster it bore me toward her, as the ship heeled to the trades—the wilder the gale I encountered off the very shores where she breathed, the more it seemed to uplift its voice against the tempest of fury which must have inevitably involved me in the ruin it brought down. It was well done,’ he exclaimed fiercely, ‘here’s to thee, old theme of the poets—broad pathway for spirits like mine to sweep! Neither the frailty of woman nor the malice of man’—here his voice grew too hoarse for utterance, and drinking off the liquor like water, he dashed the glass to the deck, walking the cabin with hasty strides, like a tiger chafing in his cage—while I, with a curse on my lips for what, as God is my judge, in spite of the man’s emotion, I believed to be a lie, sat chained to my seat, as by some predestined spell.
“Although my faith in the innocence of Ellen was as strong as in the angels of heaven, still he plainly believed all he avouched of her guilt; and still, as I clung to the one redeeming thought that nothing on earth could have tempted a spirit like hers astray, still something would whisper that she might have changed toward him, or have been made the victim of some infernal conspiracy, with woman’s malice, perhaps, at the bottom of the scheme. Strange stories in the history of the Cathertons, before they came over from England—which I had heard years before—flashed across my mind, and I felt sure—I knew, it must have been the circumstances growing out of my unfortunate duel—which, no doubt, he had twisted to the furtherance of his own purposes, which had induced her to marry him when her heart was elsewhere.
“I had little time to think of this at the moment, as you may suppose; for the sight I had seen that night, and the story of the second mate’s, with the frightful thought of what she must have endured to the end, was enough to craze my brain, until Catherton, breaking out into a laugh more like a fiend’s than a man’s, and halting directly in front of me, said—‘You look wild, Mr. Miller—perhaps you, too, have trusted woman. I tell you,’ he hissed through his teeth, as I arose and leaned against the mast, as it were, from pure weariness—staring at him in a blank way, while the blood seemed congealing to ice in my veins, ‘I tell you she was false—false as the whole sex—false as the hollowest heart of them all—though the oaths I had sworn, and the plans of revenge we had laid, kept me still.’
“ ‘No! no!’ reiterated he, laughing again in his horrid way, ‘by that time I had learned something of endurance; and, as I had no children—for I was spared that misery—it was not worth my while to thrust my neck in a halter for the sake of a profligate woman. Ha! ha! I thought better of it—it was a sweeter and safer revenge to have her here in the ship, while she knew that I was cruising the seas to beggar her paramour—for, fool-like, his money went at the gaming-table faster than it came, and I had persuaded him, in conjunction with the mate, to invest his all in the purchase of this ship—to see her, amid the healthful breezes of ocean, dying a death to which the direst of Eastern tortures are mercy—’
“ ‘Devil!’ I broke out at last, striking him full in the face with one hand, as I snatched a cutlass from the rack with the other, sending the iron scabbard, in my fury, straight across the cabin against the door of a state-room; he reeled a pace or two, laying his hands upon a half-pike at the mast. ‘Fool!’ I exclaimed, seeing that he still hesitated, ‘come on—I am S——!’
“He shortened the pike and darted at my face on the instant, but catching the thrust on the edge of my blade, I threw the point up into the deck-beam; that instant had been his last, for his defenseless head was within fair sweep of my sword, when from that very state-room, the door of which had been forced open by the flying scabbard, the same figure which I had seen before that night, again appeared, gliding now swiftly and noiselessly between.
“The cutlass fell with a clank on the deck, and I stood with outstretched arm, my soul riveted to my gaze, striving in vain to speak, while Catherton staggered back against the mast, covering his eyes with his hands. In the rigid and ghastly lineaments of death I saw, as my heart stood still, the likeness of Ellen; the frozen eyes seemed to hush my very breath; the thin, clay-like lips moved, and, like sigh from a coffin-lid, the whispered words met my ears, ‘Not thus—not thus!’
“ ‘What—what art thou?’ I gasped out—when old Charley’s voice sounded on deck; a sort of scuffle appeared to get up in the companion-way, and Halil Ben Hamet and his attendant, both sprinkled with blood and covered with soil-stains from sandal to turban, suddenly appeared on the scene.
“I stared from the apparition to the chief, and when I looked again, the place where it had stood was vacant.
“ ‘All is lost, my friend,’ said Halil; ‘they are hard on my track, and I have come hither to die with Zuma.’
“At these words the captain recovered himself, and stepping from behind the mast, waved me on deck.
“By a sort of instinct I felt compelled to obey him, as it seemed, for a space longer; and making mechanically for’ard, I roused out the anchor-watch, who, as usual, were caulking it in the galley, and not a soul else on deck, though the heat was so great, that I wondered how it was possible for a living thing to sleep. After this I again went aft to the binnacle, glancing at the watch to see if the last bell had been struck, and looking over the side, wondering if the boat in which the chief had come off, had gone adrift. I then walked to the waist again, where, hardly knowing what I was doing, I stood looking up into the dark blue where the stars were burning, until, as I gazed, a feeling of the utter vanity of earthly hopes came over me, as I thought that these same stars which had shone so calmly on men’s deeds for thousands of years, would shine the same on my grave. It seemed to me, then, that not only the feelings involved in the fate of Ellen, but all the experience of the past, all the changes of time and clime, faded away into nothingness before those twinkling, far-away lights; and a something of peace which I had never known before, swiftly as the thought seemed to travel through space to the winking planets, slid into my soul on the slant of the star-beams. Then my ear caught the splurge of the tide—a faint air from the sea fanned my cheeks—and a low growl of thunder came rumbling up into the cove. I remember, too, to have noticed lights moving on shore, while a stir arose on the beach close to the landing, but in the mood I was in at the time, I paid little attention to this.
“The Tartar lay moored stem and stern just within the entrance of the strait, midway between the island and the main, shut out by the rocks on the larboard hand from the walled town and the castles which kept the restless Arabs in awe. One or two of the little round towers, said to have been built at their gloomy and apparently inaccessible altitudes, by the old Portugese, might be seen looming thrice its real size above the hot outline of the topmost crags, over which the moon was rising, casting a strong yet dubious light on Muscat Island, which, with the bats wheeling continually about it—the patches of sand in its narrow gulleys, and the rough stones standing out of them, with here and there a stunted cypress, reminded me strangely enough of a Turkish grave-yard, and did not greatly tend to remove the impression, now uppermost in my mind, that something you’d give the world to avoid was soon going to take place. I looked intently at the Arab frigate, while the moonlight stole upon her rigging, creeping slowly down the taut sticks and back-stays to the spar-deck, where twenty red-caps and turbans were visible over the side, showing that her quarter-watch at least were wide awake, when, my thoughts wandering again, I fancied some desperate, wild-eyed wretch—such as I had often seen creeping about the slave-market and the narrow lanes of the bazaar—stealing, step by step, to her magazine, blowing the slow match in his fingers, and staring by its lurid glow at the hammocks which he passed, until I actually caught myself grasping a shroud, and watching for the upward shoot of her masts, in the broad red glare and the shock that was to follow. Then I recalled the image of Ellen as she once was, and the unsated fury burned again in my breast, fed by my belief in her innocence; then came her spirit gliding across my bewildered mind, ghastly as I had seen in the cabin; then the thought of what Catherton could be doing, until I was no longer capable of thinking at all, but just walked on the forecastle again, for the mere purpose of diverting my mind from the horrid tangle it was in. It was some relief to enter into a conversation with one of the watch—a strong, heavy-headed fellow, as green as a parade-ground—about his home among the hills of the Hudson, and the old story of the trouble which sent him to sea, which, no doubt, I listened to intently at the time, although I never afterward could remember a syllable, except something about a certain Sukey Fairlamb, who turned out to be a jilt, and one Jonas Weatherby, who took the wind out of his (the Tartar-man’s) sails. I also recollect his remarking how much hotter it had got within the past ten minutes, and looking aloft, I saw the light scud flying across the stars, though the flutter of air on deck had already died away. A noisome steam was rising out of the forecastle-scuttle enough to choke one, while a dog which we had on board lay on the fore-hatches, panting for breath, without so much as looking at the bucket of water, which some one had placed within a foot of his nose. All at once I heard the sound of oars, followed by a hubbub of voices—and a large boat, filled with men, appeared in sight, pulling from the landing toward the ship. As I started aft I saw the captain disappearing down one hatchway, as the carpenter and the cooper came up another, and as soon as the boat came alongside, I hailed. Receiving no answer, I hailed again in Arabic, when a voice answered in the same tongue, ‘Be silent, we are coming on board in the sultan’s name.’ I ordered the carpenter to make fast the warp which they threw, when the first person that appeared over the side, I knew at once to be a little French renegade, the captain of Syed’s guards; the next was the accursed eunuch himself; and if the one glance which I had of his face by moonlight had not been enough, the sight of the two Zanzibar mutes who followed him—the stealthy, cat-like looks of their eyes fore and aft the deck, and the rush of the soldiers behind, would have convinced me at once that Halil Ben Hamet’s time was come.
“ ‘Have de goodness, Monsieur Capitaine Miller,’ said the renegade, who knew me well, ‘to make de muster of de sailors on de forecastle, by de sultan’s orders, sare.’
“As it was useless to refuse, I ordered the two men of the anchor-watch to call the people for’ard, while the cooper and his crony roused out the boat-steerers in the steerage, the noise having already awakened the mates, who were sleeping in the house under the poop. The whalemen seemed bewildered enough, as they tumbled up the scuttle, and gathered for’ard of the windlass, although I noticed that they collected the handspikes in a heap—some of old Charley’s party, headed by the wild man-of-war’s man, showing signs of a determination to clear the decks. This, within half a pistol shot of the frigate’s batteries would have been sheer madness; accordingly I spoke to one or two of the men by name, ordering them to keep quiet, when two sepoys came for’ard, with drawn sabres in their hands, and ordered me into the cabin. Armed sentries were posted at all the hatchways, and naked cimiters glanced round the eunuch and the captain of the guard, seated at the table in the long cabin, where Catherton stood leaning leisurely against the bulkhead, cool and collected, with his arms folded across his breast, the imminence of the danger having apparently restored his presence of mind.
“ ‘This is my mate,’ said he, to the Frenchman, as I entered; ‘you may examine him, if you see fit.’
“Hadji Hamet turned his turbaned head, recognizing me by a doubtful smile, while the French renegade, bowing to the deck, asked me, in his broken English, if I had commanded the watch that night.
“ ‘No, monsieur,’ I answered, rather sullenly, ‘it is not customary—in Christian ships, at least—for the chief officer of a ship to head an anchor-watch.’
“ ‘Certainement non, sare,’ he replied, with something of the ineffable polish of his nation, ‘we know dat—have de goodness, monsieur, to show me de visitors in de ship—de runavays, if you please, Monsieur Miller.’
“I felt the eunuch’s devouring eyes creeping, in their slow, malevolent way, from the deck up to my face, as I answered.
“ ‘That is easy enough, monsieur—provided any such be in the ship. You cannot suppose us such fools as to receive deserters in a full ship, with plenty of idlers already on board. If the men are in the Tartar, they must have been concealed by the people for’ard, and I advise you to look in the fore-peak.’
“He interpreted what I said to the eunuch; Hadji then made some remark in an under tone, and the renegade, shrugging his shoulders, addressed me again.
“ ‘Monsieur Capitaine Miller,’ said he, decidedly, yet still with as much suavity as before, ‘you will confer de grand obligation to make de plain answer, sare, vidout de bagatelle. C’est bien malapropos à present,’ muttered he, taking snuff out of a gold box, and glancing aside at the two mutes, as they stood near Hadji’s seat, their small, serpent eyes never off of his face for a moment, and their jetty, tattooed arms folded across their naked breasts. Before I could devise an answer, groping in the dark as I was, upon gaping ground, two Arabs pushed into the throng, leading the mulatto by the collar. The fellow was terribly frightened, and looked round as if for some one to address, when his eyes lighting on the captain of the Tartar, he seemed to turn dumb as a mute at once. However, the fatal moment was not to be staved off longer, for Hadji, with a look of devilish cunning, drew a small golden whistle from the folds of his juma, and blew it till the cabin rang again; I started to hear a sort of scratching, struggling noise in the after-cabin, and the next moment some sort of an animal, between a rat and squirrel, ran through the crowd, cowering at the eunuch’s sandaled feet. A smile of triumphant malice played upon Hadji’s face, and the Frenchman, snatching up his sword, rushed through the group to the cabin-door. At that instant the thick gloom, which had been setting bodily down on deck for the last ten minutes, was rent by an awful glare of lightning, and, as the parted air collapsed, with a crash which made the ship tremble to her keel, I saw the Arab chief, standing, pistol in hand, at the door; the renegade reeled back against one of his men, while the redder flash of the pistol again illumined the cabin, and bounding like a tiger in its leap, cimiter in hand, Halel sprang over the table at the eunuch. The lamp was extinguished in the fray, and had it been the chief’s intention to escape on deck, perhaps he might have done so in the confusion which followed; for the lightning glared incessantly through the stern-ports, while the thunder, reverberated by the rocks, crashed over our heads in one continuous peal, till you’d’ve thought the hoary granite was piling over you. The first rush of the swell in the cove broke over the ship, deluging her fore-and-aft, as it heaped up in the strait in one tremendous surge, which tore the frigate from her anchor, and dashed her high against the rocks. The lighter craft fared no better, being swept from their moorings like drift wood; however, while the horrible work was going on below, the second mate had let go a second anchor, while the stern-hawser parted like pack-thread, and showing the head of the foretopmast-staysail, while some of them aft managed to get the spanker-gaff partly hoisted, and others jammed the helm hard down, the ship brought up with a surge which shook her in every timber; and, as you drew another breath in the melee below, where one man was contending with fifty, you heard the hurricane roaring over her mast-heads, like the rush of Milton’s legions to the field.
“I was thrust hither and thither, splashing in the water, nearly knee-deep on the deck, amid the clash of steel and the shrinking back of the Arabs, until a blade whizzed past my ear, falling with a dull ring on the head of some unhappy wretch, whose hot blood spouted in my face. Half blinded, I stumbled over a prostrate body, clearing my eyes as I brought up against my own berth, when another flash showed every object distinctly, and I saw the two mutes throw themselves before the eunuch upon Halil; then followed a deadly struggle from the mast through the cabins to the transom, during which Hadji’s shrill voice screamed to the executioners to use dagger or bowstring—then a heavy fall and a gasp—woman’s fearful shriek—and again you heard over all, the defying roar of the tempest.
“Torches, which had been extinguished by the wind on deck, were now relighted in the cabin, revealing a sight which was terrible to look upon. Three dead bodies lay on the deck, or across the table, besides that of the Arab chief, who had been thrice stabbed, and afterward strangled. Scarlet caps, cleft turbans, and pieces of rent apparel were washing about, with the fragments of the swinging lamp; while the table and the cabin partitions were reeking with gore.
“The Frenchman was dead as a door-nail when they raised him up, which was some comfort, though the three blacks had escaped without a scratch, except one of the mutes, whose hands were gashed with a dagger. The soldiers now closed the doors between the cabins, having first dropped the dead-lights, and after the eunuch came out, the bodies were removed out of sight in the sail-room, all except that of the chief, which was laid on the table, a dreadful sight, after the fever of the thing was past, since you could not keep from looking at the blackened face, with the eyes staring out of it, as if he were ready to start up again—the frown being still on the brow, though the orbs were glazed, and the arm hung nervelessly down.
“I shall never forget the feeling of satisfaction which arose within me—when some one threw the folds of a turban over the face—as I thought that every blow he struck had been home; only if he had cloven the eunuch’s hard head to the jaw, I had been almost happy, in a sort of religious submission to fate, as if all who loved too well on earth, must pay the penalty in some shape or other, at last.
“It appeared that the cabins had been twice searched before I was brought down, but Catherton had hidden the fugitives under a false bulkhead, so artfully contrived, that had not Hadji and the guard been so hard on Ben Hamet’s track after the attempt to assassinate the sultan had failed, they might have escaped detection. The little animal, which had revealed their presence, after all, was a pet of Zuma’s, a flying lemur from one of the Indian archipelago: woman-like, she had brought it away in her dress, and by the knowledge which black Hadji had of its habits, it was thus made instrumental in betraying the pair.
“Neither Catherton nor the steward were to be found below, after the murderous fracas was over. I had no particular desire to remain myself, as you may suppose, and no opposition being offered to the movement, accordingly I went on deck.
“The wind was now at its height, having blown every thing moveable off the poop into the seat which was breaking in awful rollers at the bottom of the cove, the squall having come from the north-west. The ship, with two anchors down under the lee of Muscat Island, rode safely enough after the first danger was over; but the Arab frigate was lying broadside on to the rocks, grinding to pieces, with nothing standing but her lower masts. She could plainly be seen, not only by the flashes, but by a strong phosphorescent gleam which pervaded the atmosphere, reflected, perhaps, from the sea, each gigantic surge sparkling with living fire, heaped up in the smothering foam of its crests, as it rolled down on the wreck. I could even see the brine pouring from her lower deck-ports, as she lifted bodily against the rocks, and fancied I could hear the despairing cries of her crew, as one by one, her heavy guns, torn from their tackles, were hurled across the decks.
“I had little time, however, to dwell on the sight, terrible as it was, for the carpenter and man-of-war’s man came driving the length of the deck before the blast, when old Charley shouted in my ear that the steward was taken with the cramp in the forecastle, and thinking he was going to die, wished to see me. Accordingly, I struggled for’ard, with a foreboding that the horrors of the night were not yet over. A knot of our men were standing in the waist, and I passed the Arabs crouching under the booby-hatches and the fife-rails, from the fury of the wind, which howled fore-and-aft the deck. I was about to descend into the forecastle, when Captain Catherton, with his Indian boat-steerer and three of the mates, came up on the other side. He waved me aft, shouting, at the full pitch of his strong voice, to the mates behind him, who held on to the windlass, and looked from him to me without moving a finger. However, the boat-steerer lifted a handspike, and his superior—who was now grown desperate, having received an inkling of my errand from the Indian—presented a pistol at my head, and pulled the trigger. It flashed in the pan; and before he could level another I closed with him, pitching him back into the scuppers, where old Charley and Frank lashed him to a spar, hands and feet. One word to the mates about his plan of running away with the ship, and I sprung down in the forecastle, where the mulatto lay on his back, raving for them to keep the captain back, while two of the men were rubbing his writhing body with whale-oil and hartshorn.
“The second mate and most of the starboard watch were standing around, looking on helplessly enough, though the moment the steward’s eye caught mine he ceased to struggle, moaning and mumbling, like a dog, till I got my ear close to his mouth, when he muttered something about searching the run under the after-cabin, where the powder was kept. The violence of the spasms interrupted him, and although there was an urgent meaning in his wild eye, and he pointed repeatedly aft, in his agony, I was awfully at a loss what to make of it, until, looking up, I encountered old Charley’s curious glance, and the ghost flitted, as it were, across the maze in a moment. The second mate must have seen the same thing himself, for without a word on either side, our eyes met in one startling flash of intelligence, and he followed me close, as snatching up a heaver, I drove along the deck, knocking the Arabs to the right and left, tumbling down the narrow stairs from the poop in my haste, with two-thirds of the ship’s company at my back—mates, boat-steerers, forecastle-men, and all—though the most of them tramped down the companion-way into the for’ard cabin, where we heard them battering at the doors and cursing the Arabs; the carpenter and myself ripped up the table and the scuttle under it. Parker stood by with a torch; I jumped down, lowering the light, and you may guess gentlemen, what I saw; for it seems,” said the master’s mate, passing his rough hand to his brow, “that long years, spent in trying to drown the sight, has hardly given me nerve to tell.
“It was Ellen, herself,” continued he, after a pause, “lying, motionless, on a heap of old bunting; but whether life had gone, or no, it was impossible for me to answer, as I took her up—staggering under my burthen, light enough, God knows, as it was. The second mate caught her from me, and I stumbled, helpless as a child, about the mouth of that horrid hole, hardly noting its secrets, until the men burst into the cabin, and I heard old Charley say she was dead.
“ ‘Where is Mr. Miller?’ said Frank, with an oath.
“ ‘Here,’ I answered, leaping out among them, every vein in my body running with liquid fire—the one thought of revenge on her murderers raging in my heart, and upon my tongue. However, the mates—aroused from their stupor at last—threw themselves upon me, as I glared round for a weapon. A wild uproar began to rise among the men, crowding upon each other to catch a look at her face, hanging over the second mate’s shoulder, with a look of mute appeal, as he told me afterward, on the wasted features set in death, by the red torch-light.
“In the midst of this, Hadji summoned his soldiers from deck: I saw his malignant purpose, and my calmness came back, as I made up my mind that, at all hazards, he should not approach the corpse. Breaking from those who held me, I burst through the throng, and pointing to the half-pikes leveled against his party, ordered him, in Arabic, to clear the cabin of his scum. He laid his hand on the hilt of his krungar, scowling like a fiend of darkness upon me from a crowd of his men; but the menacing look of the mass in front of him—all of whom had armed themselves—not to speak of the tone of my own voice, admonished him, devil as he was, to think better of it.
“ ‘That’s the sort, mates,’ said the carpenter; ‘if they don’t top their booms at a minute’s warning, we’ll spit the heathens to the beams, and then hang Jonas to the yard-arm.’
“ ‘Silence, there!’ said I. ‘One minute more,’ looking at the eunuch, and grasping the weapon which some one had thrust into my hand, ‘and it will be too late.’
“He felt that he was overmatched, and turning slowly round, still keeping his baleful glance fixed on my face, ordered his followers on deck, retiring last himself, just as I caught Frank’s pike traveling in his rear to freshen his way.
“As soon as the cabins were cleared of the Arabs, I took the second mate a little aside from the rest.
“ ‘Now, Mr. Parker,’ said I, ‘you will take charge of the Tartar. All I ask is, that you will not give up the female that Hadji Hamet has confined in that state-room, to the tender mercies of the sultan, if you can possibly avoid it—and a cast home for myself, if you can get an offing for this ship, and I am allowed to leave Muscat in her. I will pay my passage in Persian rupees, or if you prefer it, in Spanish dollars. One thing more,’ said I, seeing that he was about to interrupt me, ‘I know something of the country: if you would save yourself a mint of trouble with the sultan’s divan, you will put Catherton at once in double-irons, and keep him secure, at least, until you are clear of the land.’
“ ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I, for one, am content to obey your orders till the v’yage is up. What say you, my lads, is Captain Catherton fit to be trusted with the ship, after what has happened?’
“ ‘No, no!’ was the universal answer, mingled with execrations and oaths of vengeance.
“ ‘Who, then, shall take charge?’ asked the second mate.
“ ‘Mister Miller,’ they answered, with one voice, ‘for he only can take the Tartar off this coast.’
“ ‘Well, my lads,’ said I, wonderfully moved, I confess, seeing that I had something to live for yet, although, a moment before, I had thought that my hold on life was slackened for ever, ‘if you will have it so, I’ll do my best. I tell you fairly that the captain confessed to me last night, in this cabin, that he intended to sell ship and cargo, on the passage home, in return for some private wrong which, he said, one of the owners had done him—though,’ said I, solemnly, ‘as surely as God’s eye beheld this accursed deed, yon pale clay was as innocent as the angels of heaven of aught like crime toward him.’
“ ‘We know it, captain—we knew it all along!’ they answered, even those whom I had considered the most hardened, shedding tears, while curses and vows of vengeance were freely vented around.
“ ‘She was too good for the bloody-minded villain,’ said the carpenter; ‘and, so help me, if there is nobody else—’
“It was time to stop this, as we had quite enough of blood for that night, so I checked old Charley in his oath, and called back the Indian boat-steerer, who, at first, had seemed disposed to side with the captain, but who was now stealing up the companion-way, in an empty-handed, errandless way, though I saw the thing in his eye, and the gleam of a knife in the sleeve of his shirt.
“ ‘My lads,’ said I, ‘we will leave him to the law. He shall not escape, I promise you. Mr. Parker, you will have Captain Catherton put in double-irons, and placed in the steerage for the present.’
“ ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered, and accordingly the villain was well secured, with one of the trustiest men in the ship standing sentry over him.
“After this, the cabin was cleared of all but a strong guard, armed to the teeth, and I went on deck, leaving Zuma, who had recovered from her swoon of terror, kneeling in silence by the body of the chief. I had resolved to save her as soon as I could see any possible way, though I knew that her life and my own, perhaps, depended upon our getting under weigh, as soon as the weather would permit.
“The fury of the squall was over. One of the mates told me that it had been raining a perfect deluge a few moments before I came up, and, in fact, though it was slackening off, the decks were all afloat, and I could even see by the great flashes of waste lightning which still illumined the passage, the spherical shape of the rain-drops, as they fell. I mention this, gentlemen, to show how deeply the most trivial incident in that terrible night was impressed upon my mind, never to be forgotten while memory lives with me.
“The wind soon freshened again, blowing fiercely in gusts over the rugged top of Muscat Island, but gradually sunk as the atmosphere cleared; the stars showing themselves, here and there, in patches of clear sky, before the day dawned. Then, as the sun rose behind the lofty rocks to the east, the wind failed altogether, and it seemed fast growing as hot as before, while a vague notion got into my head, looking at the Arab soldiers on the poop, that the events of the past night, terrible as they seemed, were now but the ghosts of things that had been.
“A sort of calm, too, prevailed in the ship, as the heavy swells began to subside in the cove. The cook was in his galley, attending to his usual duties, the blue smoke rising from the funnel, straight as a pine tree, half-way to the top. The people hung in knots about the forecastle, apparently waiting for eight bells to summon them to breakfast, while the mates stood together on the larboard gangway, with a glass among them, examining the shore and the wreck of the Arab frigate, now firmly wedged in between two precipitous rocks.
“The black dog of a eunuch, secure, as it seemed, in the shadow of his master, walked the poop with as proud a stride as if his foot was already on our necks—not a muscle of his grim, relentless face moving beneath his showy turban, flecked, as it was, with blood, while, as I met his deadly, sinister glance every time he turned, I fancied to myself—as, indeed, I had done on former occasions—what a hell of secrets must lie hidden, from all but God’s eye, in the black pit of his soul. The pagan wretch was said to delight in shedding human blood, and in every variety of torture, having been cognizant of many acts of atrocious cruelty in the time of the old Imaum. His only qualities were a brutish devotion to the sultan, and a species of slow, long-breathed cunning, of which report said Syed Ben Seeyd had often availed himself in penetrating the secret designs of his enemies.
“However, when I thought of Catherton’s villainy, it could not be denied, that black or white, Christian or heathen, human nature devoid of a regulating principle, was essentially the same, differing only in the modifications of climes; and, singular as it may seem to you, several passages of the New Testament illustrative of the same idea occurred to me at the time, and I could not help feeling that it was utterly impossible for me, even if I had been differently brought up, to deny for a moment—thinking of the wisdom of the parables—that it was truly God who had spoken on earth with the lips of man: reflecting that the thirst for vengeance for a supposed wrong had made Catherton even more wicked than Hadji himself, who would probably, under any circumstances, have disdained such a dastardly scheme of revenge as the former had partially broached, thinking to have bribed me to join him, in the situation I was in at the time, partly by offers of pecuniary advantage, and partly by his tale, which had so puzzled me at first, little dreaming that he was the man who had married Ellen. I was almost confident now that the whole diabolical story of her guilt had been one of the mate’s own planning—he, I mean, who had gone to his account—and horrible as the thing seemed, I had no doubt now Parker’s notion was correct, and that the captain either in fear, remorse, or hate, or from some curious commingling of the three, had sacrificed the entire boat’s crew to get rid of his accomplice. How the body of Ellen, dreadfully emaciated as it was, came to be found in the run after the second mate’s account of her loss, was yet a mystery to me, unless Catherton, with the assistance of the steward, had palmed that story on the crew, while he secretly held her confined in the hold to starve by slow degrees. However, as I had no wish that the matter should be cleared up in the sultan’s divan, after my recent promise to the crew, I aroused myself to make the attempt to get the ship to sea.
“The cove of Muscat is less than a mile in depth from its entrance at Fisher’s Rock, but how to get out of it into the current, with no wind, against the heavy swell, was the puzzle. The two forts were to be counted as nothing when the ship was once under weigh, as they merely commanded the passage, and the risk we ran from the one on the western shore was not to be thought of, if we had a chance, when it fell calm enough, to tow the ship out into the currant setting from the Persian Gulf. The land-wind was almost certain not to blow before sunset, and the Arabs were sure to board the ship from the shore before that time, although not a single craft or boat of any kind was to be seen afloat, as I swept the harbor with my glass, and I had not the least doubt but the Soliman Shah, the corvette which had anchored off Fisher’s Rock the day before, had been driven from her anchors with the frigate.
“Another hour passed, as I anxiously watched for the swell to go down, when we saw them making preparations to get off two balitas, lying aground on a spit of sand nearly in front of the palace. As I turned to look at some persons who had appeared on the divan, a large and airy veranda, overlooking the sea, the second mate exclaimed that one of the Arabs was making signals to the shore with his turban. In the desperate case we were in, it was neck or nothing; so, as I really began to have some hopes of getting to sea in the want of crafts to board us, I instantly ordered two guns to be run in and pointed aft; the carpenter clapped a bag of musket-balls in the muzzle of each, and while Parker and the man-of-war’s man stood by with matches lit, I hailed the Arabs in their language, giving Hadji notice, that at the smallest sign of a repetition of the act I would sweep the poop. This seemed to appal them. A few moments after, while part of the people were taking their breakfast on deck, word was brought me that the steward was easier and wished to see me again.
“Directing Parker to keep a bright look-out, I dove down into the forecastle where the poor wretch was now lying in the cook’s bunk. I almost started as I looked upon him by the lamp burning at the beam over his head. His face seemed shrunken to half its usual size; the cheek-bones stood out, the eyes were pulled in, and the lips blue and puckered. His hand was clammy, cold as ice, and shriveled like a bomboat-woman’s who washed for the fleet. Though he felt no pain, there was a look of anxiety in his dim, sunken eyes, as he turned restlessly round, which, with his fluttering pulse and exhausted look, told that his hour was come. In fact, he was sinking fast into the long sleep of death, worn out, like the elements, by the fierce convulsions which had racked him. His mind was clear, and he spoke more calmly than might have been expected, though his head tossed from side to side like a dying billow. His voice was small and choked, hoarse as it seemed, from the agony which had wrung the sweat like rain from his pores. Anxious as I was to hear what the wretch had to communicate, it was with a strong feeling of repugnance that I approached my ear to his lips, for a film was vailing his eyes and the death-stupor already clouding his brain. He roused himself when spoken to, and recognizing me, confessed in a few broken words which one of the crew took down, that the mate and he after agreeing with the captain to drown Ellen, had made up their minds to secrete her in the run, and suffer her to escape from the ship at the first port they visited. In order to deceive Catherton the steward had prepared a figure when the boats were off and thrown it into the sea on the night on which Ellen was supposed to be lost. He said nothing could have tempted him to murder her, although the captain and the mate had both sworn to him that she was false. He was certain that Catherton had lost the mate’s boat intentionally, and added, that fearful of a similar fate he had not slept in his hammock more than an hour at a time since the day of the mate’s death. Immediately afterward he sunk into a lethargy from which it was useless to attempt to rouse him. From what I had heard, coupled with the sights I had seen, I had no doubt that, either from the difficulty of conveying her food, or the intention of the mulatto to starve her, she had sometimes been reduced to the necessity of seeking food for herself at night in the cabins. As the after one was generally kept locked, with the keys in the steward’s charge, she must have lived there part of the time, more than a fortnight having elapsed since the night she was thought to have gone overboard from the stern. This,” said the master’s mate, solemnly, “may account, gentlemen, for the man-of-war’s man’s story of the shriek; but nothing will ever dissuade me from the belief that it was a moving corpse which I saw that night in the cabins. That she was locked in the starboard state-room when I tried the door on the day when the sultan and his party went through the ship, I have not the least doubt now—so inscrutably mysterious is the course of fate! However, to resume my tale—for the watch is nearly out. I went on deck just as a boat from the shore was reported to be making for the ship on the long, angry swells which still dashed heavily on the western shore, impressing your mind with a vague yet overawing intimation of their might, as you heard them break half-mast high, without a breath of wind, whitening the dark range of bare rock, and leaving great gouts of foam hanging in the clefts and ledges far above the sweep of the back-wash. However, it was easy to see, watching them steadily for a few moments as you listened to their heavy, monotonous roar, and watched the birds hovering over the rocks, that in less than an hour more it would be calm enough to tow out with the tide; so I hailed the boat as soon as it came near enough, directing the man in her to go to the palace with the message that we intended to send Hadji and his party on shore as soon as the sea fell. (As I mentioned before, we had secured all the boats on the cross-beams over the quarter-deck, so that we lost none of them when the swell boarded us.) Hadji attempted to speak, advancing to the break of the deck as the messenger was cautiously turning his boat’s head in-shore, but the second mate blew his match, while a party of musket-men, whom he had placed under the high bulwarks, lest one of the soldiers might slip over the stern and swim on shore, leveled their pieces at his turban. He walked back to the taffrail sullenly enough, and I now gave orders to prepare the boats for the attempt to tow the ship out into the current, which at this season runs at the rate of about four knots an hour, thinking on the low, sandy point which we had to double. We soon found that they had collected a fleet of small boats and catamarans in the drain, evidently for the purpose of coming off to the ship, and strings of horses had been attached to the bailitas, while we could see the Bedouin Arabs galloping about near the spot, and the divan crowded with the sultan’s attendants, no doubt watching every movement in the ship.
“At ten, we dropped six boats containing thirty-six men, and as soon as they were in range of the hawsers—the ship being stern off to her anchors on the first of the ebb—as I expected, a shot from the fort on the main whistled past her bow just as the axes were lifting to cut the cables. Down they came in quick, effective strokes, and the men gave a long pull together as the heavy chains rattled out of the hawse-holes, and once more the old Tartar was in motion seaward.
“ ‘Frank, my man,’ said I to the man-of-war’s man, whom I retained on board with some of the steadiest of the men, ‘jump aft and hoist a red rag of some sort at the gaff—their own colors, you know—if it’s only to puzzle them. Stand by, carpenter, to sweep the poop when I give you the word.’ When a shot better aimed than the last struck the mizzen-rail, narrowly missing a shroud, and scattering the splinters right and left among the Arabs. Down they went on their faces, out of the way of their friends’ balls, all except Hadji, who stood it without flinching, while my hands itched, I confess, for a chance to send an ounce bullet from the barrel in my hand through his heart.
“ ‘Hurrah!’ shouted Frank from the midst of them, as up went the cook’s shirt, tacked to pieces of bamboo to give it spread. I saw them pointing their glasses at it from the veranda of the palace, and shouted to the mates to give way strong, for they were launching their rafts and a whole fleet of boats, filled with soldiers, whose spears and long match-locks glistened in the sun now rising over the rocks to the north-east. The castles and the forts began now to fire in earnest, sending their iron about the cove in every direction, though the ship in some measure shielded the boats from the few guns which bore upon them. Many balls hurtled through the air past us, but only four struck her hull, doing no particular damage. I looked at every flash to see some of the sticks go, and ten minutes more would have brought the Arabs down on us with a force which it would have been worse than useless to resist. In fact, when I saw them training their match-locks on the boats, though we were then clear of the passage in the eddy of the current, I gave up the game as lost, thinking of calling the men on board, with the desperate notion of fighting it out to the last on board, when looking over the side at the ship’s way, I saw Muscat Tom’s broad flukes and glistening back, within fifty feet of the sternmost boat. The soldiers now opened their fire to drive the men from their work—I caught the second mate’s flushed, hopeless look, as he turned his head from tugging at his steering-oar, and then the black fiend’s triumphant grin, with a malicious glance from the whites of his eyes, as much as to say: ‘you’re in for it for a good long spell, my lads’—when the sight of the whale in the desperate emergency of the case, seemed to put it into my brain what to do.
“ ‘Mr. Parker,’ I hailed, ‘have you lines and harpoons in the boats?’
“ ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered, while the men looked up at the ship as if they wondered what next.
“ ‘Cast off the larboard hawser, then,’ I shouted, ‘bend irons on to the starboard one, and strike that whale. Let the other boats come alongside.’
“ ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered again, just, it seemed, as he would have done had I ordered him to fasten to the moon, supposing that it had been shining to seaward. However, the five boats were alongside and hoisted up in no time, and Parker, as soon as he was up to the dodge, wild as it seemed, did the thing in true whaleman’s style, bending triple plies of the line to the hawser, driving both irons socket up in the whale’s back, as he lay like a log on the sea. For one single instant the enormous animal remained motionless, while the boat backed off from his flukes; then I saw his mighty, flexible tail, with its million stripes of freckled gray, heave up until his whole back was plainly to be seen to the dorsal fin, when down it came like a dark mass of iron, driving a cloud of spray in the air, and off he headed to sea, the water being too shallow for him to sound. The hawser stood the surge, and away the old ship went to her tug, the second mate giving a chase, while the men echoed back the yells of the disappointed Arabs amid the crack of match-locks and the bellowing thunder of the cannon. We soon had Parker’s boat towing astern, and Tom, if any thing, increased his speed, stretching the hawser—which, like the rest of her gear, was bran new that voyage, as taut as a harp-string. Every time he raised the edge of his flukes for a downward stroke of his tail, the men cheered; in fact, the fellows danced about the deck like wild men round a war-post, or negroes under a tamarind-tree; it was no manner of use to try to restrain them; while the poor devils of Arabs, with the black at their head, stood looking their last—with Allah’s name on their lips—at castle, rock and tower. However, the thought of what was lying in the cabins seemed to strike the crew all at once; and then, as they ceased capering and pitching their hats at each other, fixing their eyes upon me as one man’s, the old, desolate feelings came back to my heart all the heavier for the contrast.
“Still the whale held right on off the coast, and we had nothing but to fold our arms and look on, wondering when the tough, pliable irons would break or draw out—or looking for him to sound, which, you know, would cause us to cut the tow-line. The axe was ready in the second mate’s hands, and we were already in the strength of the current, which he took tail on, increasing his speed, of course, toward some old sleeping haunt of his, as I thought, possibly in the Gulf of Mageira, under the lee of some low island or coral reef. The oldest whaleman in the ship could not wonder enough at the strength of the monster—a hundred feet long, as he was, and more. He neither yawed nor slackened his pace, but kept straight on to double the sandy point broad on our larboard bow by this time. It was a strange thing, to be sure, to feel the ship slipping along, stern on to the current, with a man standing soberly at the wheel to steady it, all her sails furled, and the whale’s flukes kicking up a white dust ahead, like one of Loper’s screw-propellers. Parker told me a story of a vessel in the Greenland seas being towed by a ‘right whale’ for an hour and a half, in the teeth of a strong breeze, with the yards brailed aback; so that, at that rate, there was no estimating the powers of a full-grown ‘finner,’ a much larger and more powerful fish of the two; he might tow us entirely clear of the coast, provided the harpoons did not break off at the ‘withers,’ or ‘draw,’ which last, the mate said, was the way in which the matter was likely to end. Indeed, the event proved his knowledge of the habits and resources of this species, as we doubled the point safely enough, at the distance of two miles, in sight of a body of horsemen, who pulled up from their useless chase, on the very edge of the strand.
“A hundred wild thoughts of things which I had read of or seen, flashed across my mind, as I caught a view of the interminable blue expanse before me; now it was Mazeppa on his wild horse swimming the ‘bright, broad river’—now a Gaucho scouring the pampas—now the naked trapper running for life from the Blackfeet, over the plains of prickly pear—or, last of all, the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, which coming up, as they did, from the days of my boyhood, when the wreck of the only woman I ever loved was lying thus strangely in the cabin, with the eunuch’s black face glooming over it, oppressed me like some monstrous dream. I was aroused from this by a voice calling out that there was a large ship right in the whale’s track. Accordingly, after a little we made her out with our glasses, rolling on the long ground-swell, a frigate-built ship, which I took, from the whiteness of her canvas, to be either French or American, though the leanness of her dark hull, with its single tier of guns, as she rose on the swell when we drove nearer to her, and the improbability of one of our own cruisers being upon this coast, made me almost certain she was the first. Accordingly, when we were within gunshot, up went the old Bourbon colors at the mast, as the smoke of a gun puffed out of one of her midship ports, and you had a notion what sort of a stir was on her decks at the moment, at the sight of a large ship bearing down on her in a stark calm, with more than twice her drift; then you heard the roll of her drum beating to quarters, as if they thought ’twas Sathanas himself afloat. To ease their minds, I ordered the red rag to be hauled down, and the stars and stripes to be run up at half-mast in their stead.
“All was still as death, except the surge of the Tartar’s bows to the strain of the hawser and the creak of her hamper aloft, as the whale sheered to port, and we passed within half a pistol shot of the corvette’s broadside—her crew at quarters staring at us in a queer enough sort of a way, as if catching a sight of the American flag, and the whale-boats at the cranes, they made sure all was right, strange as the sight was—until, as if to break the spell, their little mad-eyed captain jumped on the hammock-netting and hailed.
“ ‘Bon voyage au diable, mes amis!’ he shouted, waving his cap round and round, as if he meant to jerk it into the sea, to the glorification of some Yankee invention or other, the moment we slipped past him—when Hadji’s turban and the scarlet cape on the poop caught his eye, and he sung out something which I did not hear, for the whale went down like a flash, burying the Tartar’s bows to the forecastle, deep as she was, before Parker, taken by surprise, could cut the hawser, which, after all, he had no occasion to do, as you knew by the feel of the deck, as the ship rose, that the whale was free. We hauled the slack of the hawser, looking for Tom to rise, when one of the harpoons was found broken off at the head, and the other drawn out. I never saw Muscat Tom again; and it is likely, as the old hands said, that he never rose from his dive. My yarn, gentlemen,” continued the master’s mate, “is nearly spun. The frigate’s boats boarded us, of course, when part of the tale was rehearsed to her captain. He was bound to Mocha to look after some atrocities which had been committed upon subjects of France, during a recent revolt, and at once offered to land the eunuch and his men there, and to protect the Circassian, and carry her back with him to France. However, when we entered the cabin, it was found that she was beyond the reach of mortal arm, whether to shield or destroy. She lay by the side of her lover, dead by poison, as it seemed, yet still so beautiful in death as to surprise the Frenchman. In the end he took charge of all the prisoners, as the crew of the Tartar in a body stoutly refused to do duty while Catherton remained in the ship. The French captain promised to hand him over to the American authorities on the first occasion that offered, and the remainder of the day was spent in clearing up the cabins and taking depositions in French and English.
“Just before sunset the bodies were removed to the frigate, that of Ellen in my boat, while Parker took charge of Zuma’s and the chief’s. At my request Ellen was buried immediately. Both crews were mustered in the gangways, and the ensigns hanging at half-mast as the French chaplain read the service. The last glimmer of day was fading from the west as we listened to the prayer, and a star shot its beams on the spot where the corpse went down.”
Here the master’s mate made a brief pause, during which seven strokes on the frigate’s ponderous bell proclaimed that the watch was nearly out. Before the vibrations had ceased on the ear we heard the schooner’s, like the reverberations of an echo, faintly sounding, far to leeward. The moon had sunk; the sails flapped heavily in the dying breeze, and entranced as we were, that distant clang seemed to strike a chord in each listener’s soul. In a low voice the mate resumed. “A breeze ruffled the water up as they piped down, and bidding farewell to the Frenchman, we hastened on board, and made sail on the ship.
“It was a terrible passage—such as every man in that ship will remember to his dying day—from the cape latitudes to Pernambuco, where I put in to recruit.
“The very next morning after we anchored, an agent of Don Jose Maria came on board to inquire after Captain Catherton. You may swear that he departed, with his sallow visage considerably lengthened, when he heard the news. I learned privately from the American consul, in the course of his investigations, that Don Jose was a man of great wealth and influence in the province—your very worthy and hospitable Senhor de Engenho in the country, and merchant, slave-dealer and broker in any kind of business, in which a mil reis was to be turned up in the city. I never saw the old gentleman myself, as he did not do me the honor to show his powdered head, and the long cue, which the carpenter particularly instanced, in the ship while I commanded her, although the second mate was careful that the counter-skipper whom he sent to ask after his worthy associate, should take on shore with him the exact value of the cargo on board, so far as we had advices respecting the market at home. In fact, from some estimates which I found among Catherton’s papers, I had no doubt that old Charley’s suspicions were correct, and it had been settled, when the ship touched here on her outward passage, that Don Jose should become the purchaser of the ship and cargo. Upon questioning the carpenter in private, I found that years before he had got hold of a portion of my history, from a shipmate of his, who had known me in ——, and whom I recollected to have met in the West Indies, on the very voyage, when he pointed me out at the door of a cafe to Toppin. Singular as it may appear, too, it was not until we had run up the S. E. Trades, that Parker showed me the letter which he had found in his jacket in the Persian Gulf, and which I now discovered was addressed to myself. The perusal of it had nearly driven me to share her grave in the waters, victim as it clearly showed her to have been to Catherton’s arts from the first, and, as I had supposed, murdered at last by an infernal conspiracy of his mate’s, or rather of his wife’s, as was discovered when we reached the States. It was shown that some resemblance existed between Ellen and the woman-fiend; and, from her own confession in the prison, to which she was consigned for the rest of her life, that she had been played off on Catherton for his wife, by the connivance of Jinney. The motive for the victim’s ruin did not appear so clearly, the woman herself declaring that she knew not why she hated and had sworn to destroy her. There was not a single creature in the smallest degree acquainted with the facts, who doubted Ellen’s innocence; and the tears which was shed over her unhappy fate, and the execrations poured upon her destroyers, were the best evidences of this. An undue intimacy between the ship’s owner and the mate’s wife was proved on the woman’s trial; and out of this, it was supposed, in some way the accursed plot had its origin.
“However, for myself; as soon as the news of Catherton’s escape from the French frigate reached the States by another ship, I started again, with a vow on my soul to roam the world, until I should hunt him down. Year in and year out, wherever there was a prospect of meeting him—on the African and Brazilian coasts—on the Spanish Main—and in the sea-ports of the East, I sought him with a hatred which gathered intensity from time. Twice I heard of him in command of a free-cruising craft, and once in Port Royal he narrowly escaped me. The third time, as sailors say, is lucky—the saw lied though, in this instance,” said the mate, hoarsely, “for I found him three days ago, cut in two by a round-shot, on the quarter-deck of yonder schooner.”
We started to our feet as he said this, partly from surprise, and partly because we heard the boat-swain’s mates at the hatchways.
The second day after that the Constitution was lying at anchor with her prize in the bay of Naples; and to have seen Harry Miller gazing out of a port at the world renowned shores which environ it—or turning his back on a crowd of chattering officials, whom curiosity brought off to the schooner—or in a shore-boat, with a party on leave of absence, you never would have supposed, from the look and bearing of the man, that he had been the relator of that wild yarn.
THE ACTUAL.
Away! no more shall shadows entertain;
No more shall fancy paint and dreams delude;
No more shall these delusions of the brain
Divert me with their pleasing interlude:
Forever ere ye banished, idle joys;
Welcome stern labor-life—this is no world for toys!
THE PLEDGE.
———
BY JOHN NEAL.
———
Sampson was a Nazarite. He drank no wine nor strong drink; and so long as he kept the pledge and the secret of his strength, was indeed a giant. Read the scripture narrative.
“Then went Sampson down. . . . And behold a young lion roared against him.
“And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid; and he had nothing in his hand.” Judges xiv. 5, 6, etc.
Brothers! we have pledged ourselves,
Like the mighty man of old,
By a vow that bindeth fast,
By the Future! by the Past!
By their banners now unrolled!
That the secret of our strength,
Unacknowledged—unrevealed—
Setting us apart from others,
Undefiled, O, Giant Brothers!
Shall forever be concealed:
Never to be told on earth,
Never breathed aloud in prayer—
Never written—never spoken—
Lest our awful vow, if broken,
Bring us bondage and despair.
Brothers! let us all remember,
How that Strong Man self betrayed;
He that with a heart of iron;
Where he journeyed, heard the lion
Roar against him—undismayed:
He, the mightiest of the land,
By the harlotry of Sense,
Blind and fettered, came to be
A jester at a jubilee,
A proverb for his impotence!
And though his strength came back anew
When he bowed himself in prayer,
Until he had avenged the wrong
That called him up with shout and song
And jeer and scoff—he perished there.
TO A BEAUTIFUL GIRL.
———
BY J. R. BARRICK.
———
I do not love thee—yet my heart is filled
With a sweet spirit of the beautiful,
Whene’er I sit alone to muse upon
Thy dark eye beaming in a sea of light,
Thy cheek all flush with summer’s rosy glow,
Thy pure, high brow, so beautiful and calm,
O’er which the light and glory of thy thoughts
Beam like the tints of summer’s genial sky
Above a waveless lake—the low, sweet tones
Thy gentle voice breathes on the evening breeze—
Thy pure, high heart, the paradise of peace,
Where lovely flowers spring up in beauty wild,
And blossom into hope—where angels come
On missioned wings from their far homes in heaven,
To chant their Eden songs.
I love thee not
With the wild, wayward love of earth, and yet
If worship be that deep idolatry
The heathen pays in homage to the sun,
Then I have worshiped thee, for I have bowed
In passions deep and holy hour to thee,
And at thy shrine of beauty offered up
The tribute of affection.
I have mused
On Nature in her morning light, when first
The sun looks out upon a world of peace,
When the glad air was vocal with the songs
Of many warblers in their morning joy,
And thou wast there in all of sight and sound,
Thyself the spirit of the beautiful
In all to eye and ear. And I have gone
At evening ’mid the shadows of the wood
To view the glories of the bursting spring,
And hear the thousand sweet and joyous strains
That thrilled each warbler in his evening praise,
And thou wast there, thy beauty dearer far
Than aught in nature seen, and thy sweet voice,
Than all earth’s melodies. I’ve gazed upon
The sunset sky in its last glowing tint,
And felt the spirit of the twilight hour
Stealing upon the scene with potent spell,
Yet thou wast there, and in those happy hours
Thy spirit, like the rainbow o’er a cloud,
Was spanning o’er my bosom.
Thou hast been
A rainbow set above my wildest storm,
A star within my else all darkened sky,
A lovely flower beside my desert path,
A gentle spirit in my heart of hearts,
To bless me with its presence.
From the waves,
And from the winds, and from the gentle streams,
Thy voice hath caught a spell, whose lightest tone
Is very love and sweetness. From the stars,
And from the sky, and from the sunset hues,
That glow like spirits of the beautiful
Along the western world, thine eyes have caught
A brightness and a glory that outvie
The glowing dreams of fancy. From the heaven
From whence thou sprang all perfect at thy birth,
And from all love, and from all passion sweet,
From thought and sense, and from the wide green earth
And from the sky, and from the glorious stars,
Thy mind and heart have stolen their brightest tints,
Till they are but a mirror of the whole,
The sum end substance of all lovely things,
Thyself the Spirit of the Beautiful!
THE FIRST AGE.
———
BY H. DIDIMUS.
———
(Concluded from page 546.)
BOOK FOURTH.