The merchant’s health, already weak, had received a terrible shock from the agony which his heart experienced on the evening of the assault of the pirates, a shock from the effects of which he never recovered, and when the Duchess entered Charleston Harbour, three weeks after that dreadful evening, he had to be carried on a bed from the boat to the rooms engaged for his party at the hotel. To this house, Ada Marston and John Coe accompanied him.
Immediately on arriving at Charleston, John wrote to his parents, informing them of all the remarkable adventures which had befallen him, and mentioning the state of affairs between Louise and himself. In due course he received letters from his father and mother, stating the great happiness of all the family at hearing of his safety, and expressing the full and joyous consent of Mr and Mrs Coe to the engagement of their son with Miss Durocher.
These letters gave great satisfaction to Mr Durocher. He learned from them that his child was about to enter a family by whom she would be received and cherished as indeed a daughter and sister. As his health was rapidly failing, and he felt that death was near at hand, he expressed an earnest desire that the marriage ceremony between John and Louise should not be postponed; he wished, before his departure, to see his daughter in the lawful care of a protector in whose honourable character and sincere love for her he himself had perfect faith. His will was law under the circumstances; and, on the second day after the receipt of the letters from Millmont, John Alvan Coe and Louise Durocher were united for life, at the bedside of the bride’s dying father, by a minister of the church to which all the parties belonged.
Mr Durocher survived his daughter’s marriage but two weeks. His sick-bed was waited on by two attentive and affectionate children, and his last days were soothed by the knowledge that he had done all that could be done to secure for his beloved child a happy life.
A few days after the death of Mr Durocher, John Coe and his wife left Charleston, and arrived in due course of time at the young husband’s old home at Millmont—but a little more than two months after he had disappeared from the latter place in a manner apparently so mysterious.
In less than a year John realised the amount of his wife’s fortune, with a part of which a large estate was purchased in one of the upper counties of Maryland. Upon this estate a handsome building was erected, to which he removed his family in the second year of his marriage. His descendants, distinguished, like their ancestors, for intellect and energy, still occupy that mansion.
A few words must be allowed with regard to our other characters.
Afton and the four pirates taken prisoners with him, were tried, a few months after their capture, before one of the United States Courts, in Baltimore, to which port their vessel had belonged. They were all found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Two of them died in prison before the day appointed for their execution, the other three—of whom the ruffian Afton was one—suffered the extreme penalty of the law.
John Coe kept his promise to Billy Bowsprit and the five repentant pirates. His father’s influence, and that of all his father’s friends, was used to obtain their pardon; and when it was made clearly apparent that but for their help the result of the fight between the Duchess and the Falcon would have been entirely different, that pardon was readily granted.
Perhaps the reader has some desire to know what was the future fortune of Ada.