OUT OF THE NET INTO THE TRAP.
December was well-nigh spent when Blennerhassett's bateau reached the mouth of the Cumberland and joined Burr's flotilla of a dozen similar boats. The number of men ready to embark for the Wachita counted only three or four score. This informidable showing discouraged Blennerhassett, but the "general," for so Burr was now styled, saw fleet and men with the multiplying eye of faith, and he rejoiced to have actually begun the campaign. Followers yet unseen were surely on their way to join his resolute band. The miscarriage of plans at the island imposed only a temporary delay on the five hundred expected to descend from the Alleghany country. That recruits would flock the Mississippi shores to look for the coming of the leader, and to offer themselves—blanket, gun and soul—for the bold venture, was to be expected of men whose names were written in the "Roster of the Faithful."
The motley forces drawn up on the bank of the Cumberland for review and instruction made up in fantastic variety for what they lacked in number. There was much of the grotesque and somewhat of the pitiful in the spectacle presented by the straggling ranks of boatmen and backwoods farmers. Many wore garments of butternut linsey; others had on buckskin breeches and coats of bear's pelts; some, in imitation of Boone and the pioneers, had donned moccasins and wolf's skin caps, ornamented with foxtails. Some of these picturesque resolutes leaned on their long rifles, displaying to advantage tomahawk and scalping knife.
To this nucleus of an expected great army Burr made a brief speech: "There can be no failure in any enterprise backed up by patriots of such stock as I see before me. You have the muscle and the sinew, the blood and the brains, the heart and the soul, of Western heroes. Your officers, while expecting obedience, give in return their friendship and protection. We are to share common hardships and dangers, putting up with things as they are to-day, in certainty of reward to-morrow."
The progress of the unwieldy batteaux was impeded by perils of winter navigation. Burr exercised his best generalship in directing his men how to overcome the difficulties they must encounter. He now thought he knew the river in its two siren moods, its summer singing hour and its winter rage of hunger for decoyed victims. His royal progress in Wilkinson's barge he recollected as an event so long ago as to seem an impression revived in the brain, of a voyage enjoyed in some previous state of existence.
The flotilla had passed New Madrid, when, one afternoon, Burr standing near the stern of his boat—amused himself by contemplating a procession of flying clouds in distorted shapes of dragons, hippogrifs, witches, and ghosts. The boat was close to shore, skirting a low bluff, covered with shrubs and trees. A majestic poplar standing on the river's edge drew the colonel's attention by its noble aspect. At the very moment when the prow drove opposite the monarch tree, its lofty top trembled, the towering trunk reeled and fell into the river with a terrific plunge. The twenty-foot long steering pole, to which was attached a rudder like the blade of a huge oar, was struck and splintered by the falling trunk. The seemingly firm-rooted and defiant poplar had been undermined by the incessant erosion of the flood.
"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Burr, involuntarily. "Am I the tree or the undercurrent?"
That he had far less to dread from winds, waves, and falling trees than from ominous storm gatherings of human element, menacing the fleet from the shore, the adventurer discovered full soon. He was prepared to battle with the Mississippi, but had not anticipated collision with the territorial militia, for he was in ignorance of the fact that his plans had been exposed, and that a thunderbolt from the hand of national authority had been hurled. His flotilla, as it proceeded southward, instead of being hailed and boarded by eager recruits, was bayed by the watch-dogs of the law, civil and martial. Intrusive messengers from the courts and officious colonels of raw militia regiments pestered and threatened; those, with paper warrants from local magistrates, these, with flintlock muskets in reserve.
Not until his boat arrived at Bayou Pierre, near Natchez, and landed in Petite Gulf, was Burr fully informed of the action taken by the National Government and the several States. The situation was disclosed to him by Major Flaharty of the Second Regiment, who, acting under the authority of the territorial governor of Mississippi, ordered Burr to appear at the village of Washington to undergo examination. The order was not promptly enforced, and the boats were permitted to cross the river to a point on the western shore, a few miles lower down.
Before Burr's boat pushed out from Petite Gulf, Blennerhassett hurried to his superior, and with many apologies, handed him a letter, crumpled from having been carried long in the bearer's pocket.
"This came by mail to the island, addressed, as you see, in my care. Margaret warned me to deliver it to you promptly; but the commission escaped my mind." The superscription on the letter, written in fine hand, ran thus: "To Colonel Aaron Burr, care of Mr. Harman Blennerhassett, Blennerhassett's Island, opposite Belpre, Ohio, U. S. A." Burr waited until the boat was in motion before entering his cabin to open and read the belated billet-doux, for such he judged the missive to be. The news he had just heard of Wilkinson's changed attitude, and the prospect of his own arrest, left him in a state of mind not favorable to playing the capricious game of flirtation, with pen or tongue. He cast the sealed epistle on the table provided for his use, and sat down on a wooden stool to ponder. The only illumination of his rude quarters came from a tallow candle stuck in a socket made by boring an auger-hole in a block of wood. Night had fallen, the wind blew in violent gusts and the timbers of the flatboat creaked and shuddered. Burr sat in meditation, his face buried in his hands, his elbows resting on the table, a foiled conspirator—frustrated, trapped, as he conjectured, by his suave confederate. He had drifted into the eelpot prepared for him. No mode of escape could he devise. He thought of Madam Blennerhassett, of Theodosia, of glorious visions seen and royal assurances given, in the secluded library of the White House on the lonely island in the Ohio. Vividly he remembered his first voyage down the beautiful river, the conversations with Arlington, the serio-comic encounter with Plutarch Byle, the reverie on deck of the ark, the evening in the ladies' bower. Slowly he raised his head from his hands, and moved by the automatism of habit drew a cigar from its case, lit the solacing weed at the blue-yellow cone of the candle flame, and smoked. He now felt not disinclined to take up the neglected billet-doux. He broke the seal and read.
Philadelphia, Nov. 31, 1806.
"Forgive—forgive me, if you can—I am dying of remorse. You deceived me, betrayed me, in my girlhood, but I pardoned that, for I loved you more than any other woman ever loved a man. When we met in Ohio, by strange accident, all was reconciled. How happy I was! But when I learned of your perfidy; when I was forced to realize that I was not only your jilted victim, but your hoodwinked dupe; that your object in coaxing from me my fortune was wholly selfish; that you never meant to restore either my property or my good name; while your kisses were warm upon my lips your heart was planning proposals to another woman to become your wife that I, your discarded tool, could not claim even to be regarded as your mistress; when I felt sure of all this, I was frantic with grief and rage. I went to Washington, saw the President, gave him all the facts and papers you had intrusted to me. I did this in hatred, for revenge. In my madness I wanted to crush you, to blast your hopes, to kill you, if I could. But anger gave way to remorse. I would undo what I have done, but it is too late. I know you cannot love me—you cannot pity or forgive. I never shall forgive myself. There is nothing for me to live for—I am wretched, wretched, ruined—abandoned by you and despised by the world. When this reaches you, if it ever reaches your dear hand, I will be out of this awful misery and free from shame.
"I send enclosed the diamond ring you gave me in Princeton—the one you took from my finger in that farmhouse on the Miami, to write with it on the window-pane your name, dear Aaron, my first love, and underneath it my own.
"Salome."
The unhappy trifler having reread the reproachful lines, took up the ring which had fallen upon the table when the letter was unfolded. There was a small window in the side of the cabin, opening on hinges. Burr rose, stepped to the rude casement, unfastened the bolt, thrust his arm out as far as he could reach, holding betwixt his thumb and finger the sparkling gem, and was about to cast it into the water; but he checked the impulse, drew back his hand and slipped the love-token on his little finger.
"Poor Salome!" he murmured, closing the sash. "Foolish Salome! She thinks she is the cause of my ruin; but she is not. I wish to God I could say I am not the cause of hers."
The fickle lover, rousing from his remorseful reverie, became the man of action. His boat was freighted, in part, with military stores, proof positive of warlike designs. This objective evidence must not come to the knowledge of judge or militia-man. Burr seized an axe, and calling one of the boatmen to his assistance, led the way to the main storage room, where guns and ammunition, packed in chests, lay piled. The place was closely boarded up, having no openings whatever in the sides.
"Here, Gilpin, take the axe, while I hold the light. Cut a hole in the side of the boat, between these two upright braces. Hurry up! Make the space large enough to let these boxes pass through."
The boatman chopped with lusty strokes and soon hewed an opening sufficiently long and wide through the plank siding.
"Now, take hold; help lift this, and slide it overboard."
Rapidly the two worked with might and main, casting chest after chest overboard to sink plumb to the muddy bottom of the Mississippi. By the time the steersman gave orders for landing on the Arkansas shore, the telltale cargo had all been unloaded. The innocent vessel was brought to harbor in a bend and made fast to some friendly trees.
Military officers, acting for the governor of Mississippi Territory, lay in wait to seize Burr and Blennerhassett. To the governor's aide-de-camp the chief conspirator said with bitter resentment:
"As to any projects or plans which may have been formed between General Wilkinson and myself, heretofore, they are now completely frustrated by the treacherous conduct of Wilkinson; and the world must pronounce him a perfidious villain. If I am sacrificed, my portfolio will prove him such."
This petulant outburst was of no avail to stave off the minions of the law. Burr was again in the toils. He, the distinguished attorney who had won so many cases before the New York bench, and who had presided over the Senate of the United States, was summoned to a hearing before a grand jury in the obscure village of Washington. What a descent from Washington, the capital, to Washington, the frontier hamlet; from presidency of the Senate to a prisoner's box in a backwoods court-house!
The good genius of Burr did not desert him at the hour of this, his second humiliating ordeal. Fortune, who had rescued him in Kentucky, again favored him in Mississippi. The grand jury, to the chagrin of judge and territorial governor, brought in the unexpected presentment that Aaron Burr was not guilty of any crime or misdemeanor. The jury was dismissed, but the prisoner was not discharged. Burr, who had many secret friends, was advised that the governor intended to seize on his person the moment the court should release him. The conspirator resolved to elude judiciary and executive by flight. Prudence and dignity, however, forbade precipitate action. Never was fugitive so intrepid, so calm. No valet had ever regarded him less than a hero. But how would Madam Blennerhassett judge him? She had arrived at Bayou Pierre—that Burr knew—and the first tidings she heard of her husband told her that he and Burr had been arrested. Burr sat down, and penned the following:
"Washington, Miss., Jan. 31, 1807.
"Mrs. M. Blennerhassett.
"Dear Madam: Your good husband has informed you of the miscarriage of our plans, and of our humiliating detention by Government officials. This temporary delay on the road to Beulah is wholly chargeable to the treachery of one individual in whom I placed absolute trust. No fit abiding place is yet provided for you on the Wachita acres. And Orleans is a port closed against us. How mortifying! Let not these tidings distress you, but draw upon the infinite resources of a determined will. I am not discouraged—only pestered and stung by a swarm of mosquitoes in the shape of magistrates, militia colonels, and false witnesses. Doubtless, Mr. Blennerhassett will be restored to you soon; as for myself, I take all the responsibility for his misfortunes upon my shoulders. Circumstances compel me, for the present, to move with circumspection, but you shall hear from me in good time.
"Last night, in my sleep, I had a delightful experience. I dreamed we were all sailing the Mediterranean, in a silken-sailed barge, bound for Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and every spicy, flowery land. I awoke to the 'slumbery agitation' of today's evil chances. However, 'there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' The Kingdom is within us. You recollect old Shirley's solemn lines,
'The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things.'
The only substantial world is comprised within the two hemispheres of the human heart.
"Dear madam, will you console Theodosia with one of your brave, loving, womanly letters? She is the one who will suffer most from the miserable collapse of our plans—she and poor little Gampy.
"I presume you will return to the Enchanted Ground! 'Tis a heavenly retreat. I enclose a sprig of Spanish moss from a cypress-tree near the village jail. Adieu,
"A. B."
The gallant traitor did not linger for the governor's catchpoll to seize him. French leave was better than a sheriff's hospitality. Three of Burr's faithful adherents agreed to convey him secretly, in a skiff, to a point twenty miles from Bayou Pierre, and there to provide him with a horse and a mounted guide, to facilitate his escape from the Territory. In pursuance of his project, he was about to leave Washington, on foot, to join his clandestine abettors, when he was curtly accosted by a young man whom he was startled to recognize at that time and place. Burr put out his hand, but the young man haughtily withheld his own. He spoke vehemently.
"Colonel Burr, I challenged a brave man, a patriotic soldier, to fight a duel with me, because he spoke severe words about you. He wronged you a little, but you have wronged me much—my friends more. You called Hamilton to the field for traducing you; I demand satisfaction from you for treacherously involving me and my family name with your own, in charges of disloyalty to the Government. You lied to me!"
Burr compressed his lips and filled his lungs with a quick-drawn breath. His cheeks purpled and his eyes shot dark fire.
"Mr. Arlington, you go too far. I cannot brook insult."
"Do not brook it. Resent it. You have smutched my honor. You have ruined the Blennerhassetts. You have betrayed a host of confiding people. You have endeavored to destroy the Union. I can right myself before the country and in my own estimation only by calling you to personal account. Will you meet me with pistol or with sword?"
Burr quenched the resentful fires that burnt in his heart, and replied calmly:
"My friend, I decline to meet you in any form of duel. You cannot provoke me to accept your challenge. I respect you too much to kill you. You demand satisfaction. Arlington, no satisfaction comes to either party in a fatal conflict. The dead man is indifferent to the boast of honor vindicated. I have fought my last duel. But don't imagine me afraid of threats, or bullets, or swords."
The Virginian responded in milder tones.
"Can you justify your deceptions, practised on me, or make amends for the injury done the Blennerhassetts?"
"I justify nothing. I promise no reform. My plan failed. I did my best. I am no traitor. I meant to benefit everybody. I shall be vindicated. Good-bye. Go, Arlington, marry the belle of Marietta, and be a happy man."
Arlington's nostrils quivered. A second surge of anger swept over him. Burr continued:
"I advise seriously. Win Miss Hale. I know she likes you. She is the finest woman west of the Appalachians—or east of them. I had matrimonial inclinings toward the paragon myself."
"That I know," said the young man, with crabbed acrimony.
"Yes, you know that. That is an additional reason, you think, for wishing to meet me in dudgeon. A lover hates a rival, even an unsuccessful one, and cherishes hotter resentment against the man who steals a kiss from his lady love than against him who violates a dozen federal constitutions, and breaks all the apron strings of his mother country."
The flippancy of this speech renewed Arlington's animosity.
"You will not, then, permit me to right myself by the code of honor?"
"No, Arlington, as I told you, I fought my last duel on the bank of the Hudson. Good-bye. I am not the bad man you believe me to be. But I am under a cloud. My hopes are darkened. I would like to keep your friendship, but cannot demand it. It was in our plans to make you a 'belted knight, a marquis, duke, and a' that,' but the Creator anticipated me by making you a true gentleman, which is the highest title of nobility."
Burr started on the path which led to the covert where his three faithful friends awaited his coming, to row him down the river. Halting for a minute, he looked back at Arlington wistfully, and said:
"I am an outcast and an outlaw. Farewell."
Burr followed the path which he hoped would extricate him from the labyrinth of his troubles, and Arlington left the village of Washington, and was soon on the way to New Orleans, where Evaleen Hale expected him at the house of her uncle.