Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Well, sir, well—perhaps it is best as it is. I have thought a good deal about death since I lay wounded, and have made up my mind to the worst. My life has long been a burden to me; but it is the future—the future which makes me tremble; and then that dreadful ghost-like figure unnerves me. Off with you—off!” he shrieked out. “Leave me for this once at rest!”

The Spaniards, aroused by his cries, scowled fiercely on him, and cursing him for a noisy madman, again sank back upon the stone floor. After being silent for a minute, he appeared to have perfectly recovered his senses, and continued—

“I will go on, sir, with what I was telling you about—I want to get it off my mind. Well, after we had killed the people in the revenue boat, we hove the things into the cutter, and pulled again to the shore to assist our friends. It was fortunate for them that we did so, for the soldiers had come down in great numbers, and completely got the better of them. Some were made prisoners, numbers were either killed outright or desperately wounded, and the remainder were fighting hand-to-hand for their lives, close down to the water’s edge. Some of the best men were with us. We were fresh and desperate; so, managing to drive back the soldiers for a minute, by a furious charge, before they again came on, we covered the retreat of the rest to the boats, and then followed ourselves. In a moment they were afloat, and we were pulling off from the shore. Several volleys were fired at us without doing us any mischief, and we could see the soldiers, by the flashes of their pistols, galloping up and down along the beach, in search of those of our friends who were trying to escape. About twenty of our people got off, but of course all the things, except a few we had on board, were lost, and we vowed vengeance against whomever had betrayed us. We all took a dreadful oath to that effect, which we most fearfully fulfilled. Oh! I wish that it had been broken.

“We were sullen and out of humour enough when we got on board; but there was no time then to meditate on revenge, so we lost not a moment in making sail and standing off the coast. We well knew that, after what we had done, the revenue cruisers would be keeping a very sharp look-out for us; but we were not to be daunted, even by the certainty of death, if taken. We spoke a lugger standing in for the coast, and two nights afterwards we ourselves followed her, and ran the rest of our cargo. When on shore, about that work, we discovered who it was who had betrayed us, and we renewed our oath to be revenged on him whenever we could get him into our power. He was a man who often had acted as spotsman for us, and in whom we placed entire confidence, though with the world in general he did not enjoy the best of characters. His name was Arnold, a tall, fine-looking fellow, still in the prime of manhood. He had been bribed to deliver us into the hands of the law, and, fancying that his treachery was undiscovered, he was now looking forward to getting a larger reward by informing against us a second time. We did revenge ourselves! Oh, it was dreadful! Ah!—there he is! His livid, corpse-like face is laughing, and muttering at me behind your back. I knew I could not speak of him without his coming. Yes, yes, yes!—I’ll follow! I’ll follow!—I know I must!”

And the wretched man broke into loud shrieks for mercy. He soon recovered, and continued—as if he had not interrupted himself—

“We allowed two months to pass before we ventured back to the coast, when we ran in with a valuable cargo, which we landed without his knowing anything about the matter. Five of us, among whom was Brand Hallton, who had dependence on each other, then went on shore at night. We had been persuaded by Hallton that we had but one course to pursue, and we had promised to obey his directions. While we waited hidden among the rocks on the beach, at some short distance from Arnold’s house, we sent word by a lad we took with us, that we wished to speak to him about running another crop of goods. It was a dark night, with a drizzling rain, but perfectly calm, the only noise we could hear being the ripple of the water on the sand, while nothing could be seen but the high beetling cliff above us. For a long time we waited; the moments seemed hours to me. We then thought he suspected something, and would not come. At last we heard the sound of footsteps on the beach moving towards us. My heart beat faster. I ground my teeth in my eagerness. I thought I was about to do an act of justice. That he might not by chance take alarm, one of our men went forward to welcome him as a friend. The stranger proved to be Arnold. Another then joined him, and began to talk about the business in hand. He took the bait eagerly, and offered to lend us his assistance. As he came by where I, with the other men, lay hid, the first two put their pistols to his head, and threatened to blow his brains out if he uttered a word, while we rushed on him, pinioned his arms, and gagged him, to make sure of his not giving an alarm. Powerful man as he was, he trembled violently in every limb, for he then felt that we were aware who had before betrayed us; and more than that, he well knew it and our laws; he knew that we were not men to hesitate at punishing a traitor. From the moment we seized him we did not exchange a single word with each other; but, lashing his feet, we lifted him into our boat, which was close at hand. At the same time, also, we lifted into her a large stone, with a rope made fast to it, and then shoved off from the shore.

“We pulled off for a mile or more, and then laying on our oars, we told the miserable wretch what we were about to do, giving him one minute to prepare for death. In his struggles to free himself, as he heard his doom, he contrived to loosen one of his hands, and to slip the gag from his mouth. He shrieked out in an agony of fear, and, as he entreated us to let him live, he trembled as if every limb in his body would part. He talked of his wife and family, who would starve if he were taken away from them; he promised, in the most abject terms, to be our slave—to work for us to the utmost of his power—to do all we could require of him; but we laughed at his offers; we reminded him that he had shown no pity to us—that he had caused the death of several of our friends and the imprisonment of others, and that he must take the consequence of his treachery. Again, with groans and tears, he petitioned for mercy; he was not a man much given in general to words, but now they flowed forth, like a torrent in winter, with prayers for life; but nothing, he could say could alter our determination. At first, he attempted to deny what he had done, but we soon made him acknowledge his crime: he had broken our laws, and must abide the penalty. At last, we got tired of listening to him; we were eager for vengeance, and yet we felt a pleasure in witnessing his agony.

”‘Come—we have had enough of this palaver,’ said one of our people. ‘If you have got a bit of a prayer to say, be quick about it.’

”‘In a minute more you won’t be in so great a hurry to open your mouth,’ sneered another.

“The miserable wretch saw we were in earnest, and I believe he did try to say a prayer; but we were in a hurry to finish the job. I fully believe, indeed, that every one of us had thought we were going to do an act of strict justice; but when it came to the point, my mind misgave me. There was, however, now no drawing back; I dared not even utter my thoughts to my companions. My hands trembled as I assisted to make the rope, with the stone to it, fast round his feet; but the darkness prevented their seeing my agitation. We then let the stone hang overboard, while we lifted our victim, thus bound hand and foot, on to the gunwale of the boat. For a moment we let him remain there; and oh, what a cry of agony he gave as we tilted him up, and down he went straight into the deep sea!—the water closed over his head, and not a mark remained to show that a moment before another living being had been with us in health and strength! We thought the sea would for ever hide the deed from mortal eye, and that no one but ourselves would ever be able to tell how Arnold died. Ah! fools that we were to think to escape punishment for work like that!