My mistress told me afterwards that I groaned and reeled backward. I should have fallen had she not caught me by the arm. In a moment the passion spent itself and I was sane once more. But the temptation of that smell had prevailed against the prompting of my conscience. I determined to run the risk. My life if it must be! Yes, my life, but his too.
So I resolved to join the Red Band. The elaborate precautions I took before I assumed my disguise were not excessive. There were many accidents to be provided against. In the first place, though Lady Marmaduke would be able to account plausibly for my disappearance from New York, I might be tolerably sure that the patroon would scent danger in the circumstance. I must be doubly careful not to leave any tracks that would point either forward or backward from the moment I changed my identity.
Paradoxical as it sounds, I must accomplish my disguise without the help of any disguise at all. If my bold plan succeeded and resulted in my becoming a member of the Red Band, I must be able to strip and wash myself before my fellow members, or to stand a merry bout of leapfrog or wrestling in the servants’ quarters. In such a situation I could not guard myself against discovery by means of a painted face that would wash off at the first touch of water, nor rely upon a wig or any other outward changes of my face. I could put on different clothes; I could cut off my beard and moustache; for the rest, I must trust to the very boldness of the deception to bring me through with safety.
When night came I had prepared a plan by which I hoped to annihilate every trace of my presence as completely as if I had flown away on the wings of the wind. In the course of the day it got abroad that I should set out early the next morning for Albany on business of Lady Marmaduke’s. In this simple way was my disappearance on the morrow to be accounted for.
About midnight Pierre and I left the city stealthily and paddled in a canoe to the shore of Long Island. Little Pierre, as I have said, was a barber. He had brought his shaving utensils with him, and by the light of the moon he shaved me, lip and chin. I then put on the one suit of clothes that I had brought with me and which, fortunately, I had not yet worn in public. Pierre made a bundle of my discarded garments and prepared to set out with them to Marmaduke Hall. We shook hands at the edge of the water. Pierre tried once or twice to say something, but he could not find the voice. He seemed to feel the danger of the situation even more than I did. At last he blurted out:
“Well, if we don’t see you again, here’s luck.”
He gave the canoe a prodigious shove. A moment later he was paddling steadily towards the North River. I watched him until he was lost in the darkness; then I set out across the island to Gravesoon, for I intended to repeat the journey that I had formerly made when I first came to New York. If, when I appeared at the manor-house, Van Volkenberg should doubt the truth of the story I was going to tell him, he would be likely to inquire into the circumstances of my arrival. I resolved to let him trace me to the very edge of the broad Atlantic. There he might stare to his heart’s content. He would see nothing but the wide blue circle of the sea.
Fortune was on my side that morning. By day-light I was standing on the shore of the cove where I had been set down a few days before by Captain Tew. There was, by accident, at that very moment a great ship hull down in the offing. The presence of this vessel did me good service. When I approached the ordinary at Gravesoon, in spite of the early hour of the morning, I found a number of people about the door. One of them held a spy-glass in his hand and was trying to make out the identity of the distant ship.
I was much relieved to find, when I came to speak with the landlord, that he had but the vaguest recollection of my former appearance. To be sure, he had seen me only once; yet he had a slight remembrance of the fact. When I hinted pretty plainly that I had come ashore from the ship, which by that time was almost out of sight, he said:
“You are the second man this week. The other fellow came at night and, bless you! not a word would he say of where he came from or where he was going to.” This reassured me, for I had inquired after Van Volkenberg, and I was glad that the landlord had forgotten the fact. Then he said abruptly, “Can you blow a shell?”