“Just before sunset the bodies were removed to the frigate, that of Ellen in my boat, while Parker took charge of Zuma’s and the chief’s. At my request Ellen was buried immediately. Both crews were mustered in the gangways, and the ensigns hanging at half-mast as the French chaplain read the service. The last glimmer of day was fading from the west as we listened to the prayer, and a star shot its beams on the spot where the corpse went down.”
Here the master’s mate made a brief pause, during which seven strokes on the frigate’s ponderous bell proclaimed that the watch was nearly out. Before the vibrations had ceased on the ear we heard the schooner’s, like the reverberations of an echo, faintly sounding, far to leeward. The moon had sunk; the sails flapped heavily in the dying breeze, and entranced as we were, that distant clang seemed to strike a chord in each listener’s soul. In a low voice the mate resumed. “A breeze ruffled the water up as they piped down, and bidding farewell to the Frenchman, we hastened on board, and made sail on the ship.
“It was a terrible passage—such as every man in that ship will remember to his dying day—from the cape latitudes to Pernambuco, where I put in to recruit.
“The very next morning after we anchored, an agent of Don Jose Maria came on board to inquire after Captain Catherton. You may swear that he departed, with his sallow visage considerably lengthened, when he heard the news. I learned privately from the American consul, in the course of his investigations, that Don Jose was a man of great wealth and influence in the province—your very worthy and hospitable Senhor de Engenho in the country, and merchant, slave-dealer and broker in any kind of business, in which a mil reis was to be turned up in the city. I never saw the old gentleman myself, as he did not do me the honor to show his powdered head, and the long cue, which the carpenter particularly instanced, in the ship while I commanded her, although the second mate was careful that the counter-skipper whom he sent to ask after his worthy associate, should take on shore with him the exact value of the cargo on board, so far as we had advices respecting the market at home. In fact, from some estimates which I found among Catherton’s papers, I had no doubt that old Charley’s suspicions were correct, and it had been settled, when the ship touched here on her outward passage, that Don Jose should become the purchaser of the ship and cargo. Upon questioning the carpenter in private, I found that years before he had got hold of a portion of my history, from a shipmate of his, who had known me in ——, and whom I recollected to have met in the West Indies, on the very voyage, when he pointed me out at the door of a cafe to Toppin. Singular as it may appear, too, it was not until we had run up the S. E. Trades, that Parker showed me the letter which he had found in his jacket in the Persian Gulf, and which I now discovered was addressed to myself. The perusal of it had nearly driven me to share her grave in the waters, victim as it clearly showed her to have been to Catherton’s arts from the first, and, as I had supposed, murdered at last by an infernal conspiracy of his mate’s, or rather of his wife’s, as was discovered when we reached the States. It was shown that some resemblance existed between Ellen and the woman-fiend; and, from her own confession in the prison, to which she was consigned for the rest of her life, that she had been played off on Catherton for his wife, by the connivance of Jinney. The motive for the victim’s ruin did not appear so clearly, the woman herself declaring that she knew not why she hated and had sworn to destroy her. There was not a single creature in the smallest degree acquainted with the facts, who doubted Ellen’s innocence; and the tears which was shed over her unhappy fate, and the execrations poured upon her destroyers, were the best evidences of this. An undue intimacy between the ship’s owner and the mate’s wife was proved on the woman’s trial; and out of this, it was supposed, in some way the accursed plot had its origin.
“However, for myself; as soon as the news of Catherton’s escape from the French frigate reached the States by another ship, I started again, with a vow on my soul to roam the world, until I should hunt him down. Year in and year out, wherever there was a prospect of meeting him—on the African and Brazilian coasts—on the Spanish Main—and in the sea-ports of the East, I sought him with a hatred which gathered intensity from time. Twice I heard of him in command of a free-cruising craft, and once in Port Royal he narrowly escaped me. The third time, as sailors say, is lucky—the saw lied though, in this instance,” said the mate, hoarsely, “for I found him three days ago, cut in two by a round-shot, on the quarter-deck of yonder schooner.”
We started to our feet as he said this, partly from surprise, and partly because we heard the boat-swain’s mates at the hatchways.
The second day after that the Constitution was lying at anchor with her prize in the bay of Naples; and to have seen Harry Miller gazing out of a port at the world renowned shores which environ it—or turning his back on a crowd of chattering officials, whom curiosity brought off to the schooner—or in a shore-boat, with a party on leave of absence, you never would have supposed, from the look and bearing of the man, that he had been the relator of that wild yarn.
THE ACTUAL.
Away! no more shall shadows entertain;