Your father is not dead, Devereux replied, although I must not disguise from you that his life is despaired of. He has been infamously treated, and, as it is presumed, unfairly wounded, either by some hired assassin or by Sir David Ap Owen, with whom the unhappy gentleman, it seems, had been induced to trust himself, and turn out alone to settle their differences by a duel. This is all we can at present collect of an affair, that has a very black appearance. Suspicion is strong against Ap Owen, who has absconded, and the ministers of justice are sent out in all directions after him. He is not yet discovered; and your poor father, who is now attended by his surgeons in my house, I am sorry to say, is in no capacity of giving us any information, his senses being totally deranged.
To this De Lancaster for a few minutes was in no condition to make answer, but put up his hand to his eyes, and suffered grief to overpower him. The barge now approached the landing place, where Devereux’s carriage was in waiting. Our hero rallied his spirits, landed from the barge with an assumed composure, took his seat in the coach, and soon found himself at the door of a magnificent house in the great square, that opens to the river.
Ushered by his friendly host through a noble hall, John De Lancaster ascended the stairs, and cautiously entered the chamber, where his father was lying on a couch, at the side of which a young lady was standing, who made a sign for him to stop. It was the daughter of Mr. Devereux, and by the faint light, that was admitted into the chamber, the elegance of her form struck on the instant with such a resemblance to the image ever present to his mind, that in the agitation of the moment the words involuntarily escaped him in a murmur loud enough for her to hear—Heaven defend me, is it my Amelia, or some sister angel, that I see?—Alas, she said, ’twould be an angel’s office to afford you comfort; for human help I fear is all in vain—He bowed, and approached the couch.
A death-like insensibility, though not death itself, seemed to have locked up all the vital powers of the unhappy object, which to behold, now chilled the filial heart of our afflicted hero. He took his father’s hand, and turning to the lady by his side—It is not absolutely cold, he said, nor is his pulse quite gone. If I could waken him from this morbid trance, and get him once to turn his eyes upon me, I think that he would know me.
Try it, she said; and speak to him. Perhaps your voice may rouse him: Our’s have no effect.
Father! he cried, my father, do you hear me? I am your son. I am come to visit you; to comfort you, to avenge you. Look on me; recollect me! it is I; ’tis John De Lancaster, who speaks to you.
The filial voice awakened him; the animating call stayed the emancipated spirit, even in the act of parting on its flight, and Death, at Nature’s privileged appeal still to be heard, forbore to stop the pulses of the heart, and gave the reinstated senses once more use of their suspended functions.
When Maria Devereux saw this, she exclaimed—He lives; he stirs! Let in more light, that he may see his son.
The dying father had now unclosed his eyes, and the wild ghastly stare, with which at first he fixed them on his son, as his mind gained its recollecting power, softened, and by degrees assumed a look, indicative of that intelligence, that gleam of satisfaction and delight, which in his mercy God sometimes vouchsafes, when he releases his afflicted creatures, and calls them to his peace from persecution and a world of woe.
At length a voice, yet audible, exclaimed—My son, my son! I see you, hear you: You are come to close your father’s eyes—May Heaven reward you for it! Ah John, John, I am murdered, basely murdered.—Here he checked, and straggled hard for words. At length he faintly cried, Reach me a cordial; let me wet my throat, and I’ll relate it to you.