The old Antiquary observes the change that has come so suddenly over Maria's feelings, but his entreaties fail to elicit the cause. Shall she return to the house made doubtful by its frail occupants; or shall she crave the jailer's permission to let her remain and share her father's cell? Ah! solicitude for her father settles the question. The alternative may increase his apprehensions, and with them his sufferings. Night comes on; she kisses him, bids him a fond adieu, and with an aching heart returns to the house that has brought so much scandal upon her.
On reaching the door she finds the house turned into a bivouac of revelry; her own chamber is invaded, and young men and women are making night jubilant over Champagne and cigars. Mr. Keepum and the Hon. Mr. Snivel are prominent among the carousers; and both are hectic of dissipation. Shall she flee back to the prison? Shall she go cast herself at the mercy of the keeper? As she is about following the thought with the act, she is seized rudely by the arms, dragged into the scene of carousal, and made the object of coarse jokes. One insists that she must come forward and drink; another holds an effervescing glass to her lips; a third says he regards her modesty out of place, and demands that she drown it with mellowing drinks. The almost helpless girl shrieks, and struggles to free herself from the grasp of her enemies. Mr. Snivel, thinking it highly improper that such cries go free, catches her in his arms, and places his hand over her mouth. "Caught among queer birds at last," he says, throwing an insidious wink at Keepum. "Will flock together, eh?"
As if suddenly invested with herculean strength, Maria hurls the ruffian from her, and lays him prostrate on the floor. In his fall the table is overset, and bottles, decanters and sundry cut glass accompaniments, are spread in a confused mass on the floor. Suddenly Mr. Keepum extinguishes the lights. This is the signal for a scene of uproar and confusion we leave the reader to picture in his imagination. The cry of "murder" is followed quickly by the cry of "watch, watch!" and when the guardmen appear, which they are not long in doing, it is seen that the very chivalric gentlemen have taken themselves off—left, as a prey for the guard, only Maria and three frail females.
Cries, entreaties, and explanations, are all useless with such men as our guard is composed of. Her clothes are torn, and she is found rioting in disreputable company. The sergeant of the guard says, "Being thus disagreeably caught, she must abide the penalty. It may teach you how to model your morals," he adds; and straightway, at midnight, she is dragged to the guard-house, and in spite of her entreaties, locked up in a cell with the outcast women. "Will you not hear me? will you not allow an innocent woman to speak in her own behalf? Do, I beg, I beseech, I implore you—listen but for a minute—render me justice, and save me from this last step of shame and disgrace," she appeals to the sergeant, as the cell door closes upon her.
Mr. Sergeant Stubble, for such is his name, shakes his head in doubt. "Always just so," he says, with a shrug of the shoulders: "every one's innocent what comes here 'specially women of your sort. The worst rioters 'come the greatest sentimentalists, and repents most when they gets locked up—does! You'll find it a righteous place for reflection, in there." Mr. Sergeant Stubble shuts the door, and smothers her cries.
CHAPTER XLVI.
GAINING STRENGTH FROM PERSECUTION.
You know it is Bulwer who says, and says truly: "There is in calumny a rank poison that, even when the character throws off the slander, the heart remains diseased beneath the effect." The force of this on Maria's thoughts and feelings, surrounded as she was by the vile influences of a Charleston cell, came with strange effect as she contemplated her friendless condition. There is one witness who can bear testimony to her innocence, and in Him she still puts her trust. But the charitable have closed their ears to her; and the outside world is too busy to listen to her story. Those words of the poor woman who said, "You are still richer than me," again ring their sweet music in her ear, and give strength to her weary soul. They come to her like the voice of a merciful Providence, speaking through the hushed air of midnight, and breathing the sweet spirit of love into the dusky figures who tenant that dreary cell. To Maria it is the last spark of hope, that rarely goes out in woman's heart, and has come to tell her that to-morrow her star may brighten. And now, reader, turn with us to another scene of hope and anxiety.
The steamer which bears Tom to Charleston is off Cape Romaine. He has already heard of the fate of the old man McArthur. But, he asks himself, may not truth and justice yet triumph? He paces and repaces the deck, now gazing vacantly in the direction the ship is steering, then walking to the stern and watching the long train of phosphoric light playing on the toppling waves.