FROM DESPONDENCY TO REJOICING
Ben Wilford made his way to the deck of the steamer, and in the darkness stumbled against the cables, with which the boat was anchored. He was bent on mischief, and he unstoppered the cables, permitting them to run out and sink to the bottom of the lake. The wind was blowing, still pretty fresh, from the west, and the steamer, now loosened from her moorings, began to drift toward the middle of the lake.
"They'll find I'm not a nobody," whined he. "She'll go down in the deep water this time."
The drunken villain then stumbled about the deck till he found the lines which kept the hogsheads in place under the guards. Groaning, crying, and swearing, he untied and threw the ropes overboard. Some of the casks, relieved of the pressure on them by the removal of the water from the interior of the hull, came out from their places and floated off. Ben rolled into the wherry again, and with the boat-hook hauled the others out. Satisfied that he had done his work, and that the Woodville would soon go down in the middle of the lake, he pulled as rapidly as his intoxicated condition would permit toward the ferry-landing.
"They'll find I'm not a nobody," he repeated, as he rowed to the shore. "They can't raise her now; and they'll never see her again."
Intoxicated as he was, he had not lost his sense of caution. He knew that he had done a mean and wicked action, which it might be necessary for him to conceal. As he approached the landing, he wiped his eyes, and choked down the emotions that agitated him. He tried to make no noise, but his movements were very uncertain; he tumbled over the thwarts, and rattled the oars, so that, if those in the cottage had not slept like rocks, they must have heard him. He reeled up to the house, took off his shoes, and crept upstairs to his room. He made noise enough to wake his mother; but Lawry and Ethan were not disturbed.
The wretch had accomplished his work. He was satisfied, as he laid his boozy head upon the pillow, that the Woodville was even then at the bottom of the lake, with a hundred feet of water rolling over her. It was two o'clock in the morning; but the vile tipple he had drank, and the deed he had done, so excited him that he could not sleep. He tossed on his bed till the day dawned, and the blessed light streamed in at the window of the attic.
"Four o'clock!" shouted Lawry, as the timepiece in the kitchen struck the hour. "All hands ahoy, Ethan!"
His enthusiastic fellow laborer needed no second call, and leaped out of bed. Ben was still awake, and the lapse of the hours had in some measure sobered him.
"It's a fine day, Ethan," said Lawry.