"I hope we shall be able to pass some time together yet, in this world. But, if God decrees otherwise, here and hereafter, my dearest mother,
"Your loving child,
"Margaret."
Who is there that reads twice a sorrowful story without entertaining an unreasonable hope that its ending may change in the reperusal? So does one return to the fate of "Paul and Virginia," so to that of the "Bride of Lammermoor." So, even in the wild tragedy of "Othello," seen for the hundredth time, one still sees a way of escape for the victim; still, in imagination, implores her to follow it. And when repeated representation has made assurance doubly sure, we yield to the mandate which none can resist, once issued, and say, "It was to be."
This unreasonable struggle renews itself within us as we follow the narrative of Margaret's departure for her native land. Why did she choose a merchant vessel from Leghorn? why one which was destined to carry in its hold[268] the heavy marble of Powers's Greek Slave? She was warned against this, was uncertain in her own mind, and disturbed by presages of ill. But economy was very necessary to her at the moment. The vessel chosen, the barque "Elizabeth," was new, strong, and ably commanded. Margaret had seen and made friends with the captain, Hasty by name, and his wife. Horace Sumner was to be their fellow-passenger, and a young Italian girl, Celeste Paolini, engaged to help in the care of the little boy. These considerations carried the day.
Just before leaving Florence, Margaret received letters the tenor of which would have enabled her to remain longer in Italy. Ossoli remembered the warning of a fortune-teller, who in his childhood had told him to beware of the sea. Margaret wrote of omens which gave her "a dark feeling." She had "a vague expectation of some crisis," she knows not what; and this year, 1850, had long appeared to her a period of pause in the ascent of life, a point at which she should stand, as "on a plateau, and take more clear and commanding views than ever before." She prays fervently that she may not lose her boy at sea, "either by unsolaced illness, or amid the howling waves; or if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief."[269]
These presentiments, strangely prophetic, returned upon Margaret with so much force that on the very day appointed for sailing, the 17th of May, she stood at bay before them for an hour, unable to decide whether she should go or stay. But she had appointed a general meeting with her family in July, and had positively engaged her passage in the barque. Fidelity to these engagements prevailed with her. She may have felt, too, the danger of being governed by vague forebodings which, shunning death in one form, often invite it in another. And so, in spite of fears and omens, too well justified in the sequel, she went on board, and the voyage began in smooth tranquillity.
The first days at sea passed quietly enough. The boy played on the deck, or was carried about by the captain. Margaret and her husband suffered little inconvenience from seasickness, and were soon walking together in the limited space of their floating home. But presently the good captain fell ill with small-pox of a malignant type. On June 3d the barque anchored off Gibraltar, the commander breathed his last, and was accorded a seaman's burial, in the sea. Here the ship suffered a detention of some days from unfavorable winds, but on the 9th was able to proceed on her way; and two days later Angelo showed symptoms of the[270] dreadful disease, which visited him severely. His eyes were closed, his head swollen, his body disfigured by the accompanying eruption. Margaret and Ossoli, strangers to the disease, hung over their darling, and nursed him so tenderly that he was in due time restored, not only to health, but also to his baby beauty, so much prized by his mother.
Margaret wrote from Gibraltar, describing the captain's illness and death, and giving a graphic picture of his ocean funeral. She did not at the time foresee Angelo's illness, but knew that he might easily have taken the infection. Relieved from this painful anxiety, the routine of the voyage re-established itself. Ossoli and Sumner continued to instruct each other in their respective languages. The baby became the pet and delight of the sailors. Margaret was busy with her book on Italy, but found time to soothe and comfort the disconsolate widow of the captain after her own availing fashion. Thus passed the summer days at sea. On Thursday, July 18th, the "Elizabeth" was off the Jersey coast, in thick weather, the wind blowing east of south. The former mate was now the captain. Wishing to avoid the coast, he sailed east-north-east, thinking presently to take a pilot, and pass Sandy Hook by favor of the wind.
At night he promised his passengers an early[271] arrival in New York. They retired to rest in good spirits, having previously made all the usual preparations for going on shore.
By nine o'clock that evening the breeze had become a gale, by midnight a dangerous storm. The commander, casting the lead from time to time, was without apprehension, having, it is supposed, mistaken his locality, and miscalculated the speed of the vessel, which, under close-reefed sails, was nearing the sand-bars of Long Island. Here, on Fire Island beach, she struck, at four o'clock on the morning of July 19th. The main and mizzen masts were promptly cut away, but the heavy marble had broken through the hold, and the waters rushed in. The bow of the vessel stuck fast in the sand, her stern swung around, and she lay with her broadside exposed to the breakers, which swept over her with each returning rise,—a wreck to be saved by no human power.