When I recovered my senses, after the events narrated in the last
chapter, I found that I was lying in the cabin of the schooner on board
which I had been serving, while a group composed of the three surgeons
and several officers of the expedition stood around me. As I opened my
eyes and glanced around, scarce conscious as yet of the objects that met
my gaze, one of the medical men bent over me and said that my safety
depended on my quiet. Gradually I imbibed the full meaning of his words,
and called to mind the events immediately preceding my fall; but, in
spite of his charge, I felt an uncontrollable desire to learn the extent
of my injury. In a low whisper—so low indeed that I was startled at its
faintness—I asked if I was seriously wounded and whether we had
conquered. But he smiled as he replied,
“Not now, at least not in full, for your weakness forbids it. But the
danger is over. The ball has been extracted. Quiet is all you now
require.”
“But,” said I again, “how of our expedition? Have we conquered?”
“We have, but not a word more now. To-morrow you shall hear all.
Gentlemen,” he continued, turning to the group, “we had best withdraw
now that our friend is past the crisis. He needs repose.”
I felt the wisdom of this advice, for my brain was already whirling from
the attempt to control my thoughts, even for the mere purpose of asking
the questions necessary to satisfy my curiosity; so when the group left
the cabin I sank back on my couch, and closing my eyes with a sense of
relief, soon lost all recollection in a deep sleep, the effect, no
doubt, of the opiate which had been administered to me.
When I awoke, the morning breeze was blowing freshly through the cabin,
bringing with it the odors of thousands of aromatic plants from the
shores of the neighboring islands, and as it wantoned across my
forehead, dallying with my hair and imparting a delicious coolness to
the skin, I felt an invigorating, pleasurable sensation—a sensation of
the most exquisite delight—such as no one can imagine who has not felt
the cool breath of morning after an illness in the close cabin of a
small schooner.
My curiosity to hear the events of the combat that occurred after my
fall, would not suffer me to rest, and I gave my attendants no peace
until I had learnt the whole.
It will be recollected that when I sank to the deck in a state of
insensibility, we were engaged in a warm contest with the piratical hulk
which had been moored across the mouth of the outlet from the lagoon.
The fight was maintained for some time on board of the enemy, and at
first with varying success; but the daring of our men at last overcame
the desperate resistance of the pirates, and the enemy were either
driven below, cut down, or forced overboard. This outwork, as it were,
having thus been carried, we pushed on to the settlement itself, for the
other vessels moored in the lagoon were by this time deserted, the
pirates having retreated to a fortification on the shore, where their
whole force could act together, and where they had entrenched
themselves, as they vainly imagined, in an impregnable position. But our
brave fellows were not intimidated. Flushed with success, and burning to
revenge those of their comrades who had already fallen, they cried out
to be led against the desperadoes. Accordingly, under cover of the guns
of our little fleet, the men were landed, and, while a brisk fire was
kept up from the vessels, the assault was made. At first the pirates
stood manfully to their posts, pouring in a deadly and unremitting fire
on the assailants. In vain did the officers lead on their men three
several times to the assault, for three several times were they driven
back by the rattling fire of the now desperate pirates. To increase the
peril of their situation, no sign of their companions in the rear had as
yet appeared. The ruffians were already cheering in anticipation of a
speedy victory, and our men, although still burning for vengeance, were
beginning to lose all hope of victory, when the long expected rocket,
announcing the arrival of the other party, shot up from the dense
thicket in the rear of the fort, and instantaneously a crashing volley
burst from the same quarter, followed by a long, loud cheer in which was
recognised the battle shout of our comrades. The sounds shivered to the
very hearts of our almost dispirited men, and added new energy to their
souls and fresh vigor to their arms. Again they demanded to be led to
the assault, and, with fixed bayonets, following their leader, they
dashed up to the very embrasures of the fort. Then began a slaughter so
terrific that the oldest veterans assured me they had never witnessed
the like. Through an impervious veil of smoke, amid plunging balls and
rattling grape shot, our gallant fellows swept over the plain, through
the ditch, up the embankment, and into the very heart of the
fortification. At the mouths of their guns they met the pirates, bearing
them bodily backwards at the point of the bayonet. But if the onslaught
was determined the resistance was desperate. Every step we advanced was
over the dead bodies of the foeman. Throwing away their muskets, they
betook themselves to their pikes and cutlasses, and though forced to
retreat by our overwhelming numbers, retreating sullenly, like a lion at
bay, they marked their path with the blood of the assailants. Meanwhile
the detachment of our troops in the rear, finding the defences in that
quarter weaker than those in front, soon carried the entrenchments, and
driving before it as well the immediate defenders of the walls, as the
desperadoes who had hurried to reinforce them, it advanced with loud
cheers to meet us in the centre of the fortification. Hemmed in thus on
every side, the pirates saw that further resistance was useless, and
were seized with a sudden panic. Some threw down their arms and cried
for quarter, others cast themselves in despair on our bayonets, while a
few, managing to escape by cutting their way through a part of our line,
took to the swamps in the rear of the fort, whither they defied pursuit.
In less than an hour from the first assault, not a pirate was left at
large within the precincts of the settlement. The huts were given to the
flames, and the hulk at the outlet of the lagoon scuttled and sunk. The
other vessels were manned by our own forces and carried away as
trophies. Thus was destroyed one of the most noted piratical haunts
since the days of the Bucaneers.
We learned from the prisoners that the approach of the expedition had
been detected while it was yet an hour’s sail from the settlement, and
that preparations had instantly been made for our repulse. Had we not
been under a misapprehension as to the strength of these desperadoes,
and thus been induced to take with us more than double the force we
should otherwise have employed, their efforts would no doubt have been
successful, since the almost impregnable nature of their defences
enabled them to withstand the assault of a force four times the number
of their own. It was only the opportune arrival of our comrades, and the
surprise which they effected in their quarter of attack, that gave us
the victory after all. As it was, our loss was terrible. We had
extirpated this curse of society, but at what a price!
The wound which I had received was at first thought to be mortal, but
after the extraction of the ball my case assumed a more favorable
aspect. The crisis of my fate was looked for with anxiety by my comrades
in arms. My return to consciousness found them, as I have described,
watching that event at my bedside.
Our voyage was soon completed, and we entered the port of —— amid the
salvos of the batteries and the merry peals of the various convent
bells. The governor came off to our fleet, almost before we had dropped
our anchors, and bestowed rewards on the spot on those of his troops who
had peculiarly distinguished themselves. He came at once to my cot, and
would have carried me home to the government-house, but Mr. Neville, the
uncle of the fair girl whom I had saved from the desperadoes, having
attended his excellency on board, insisted that I should accept the
hospitalities of his home.
“Well,” said his excellency, with a meaning smile, “I must give him up,
for, as you say, mine is but a bachelor establishment, and hired nurses,
however good, do not equal those who are actuated by gratitude. But I
must insist that my own physician shall attend him.”
I was still too weak to take any part in this controversy, and although
I made at first a feeble objection to trespassing on Mr. Neville’s
kindness, he only smiled in reply, and I found myself, in less than an
hour, borne to his residence, without having an opportunity to
expostulate.
What a relief it is, when suffering with illness, to be transported from
a close, dirty cabin to a large room and tidy accommodations! How
soothing to a sick man are those thousand little conveniencies and
delicacies which only the hand of woman can supply, and from which the
sufferer on shipboard is debarred! The well-aired bed linen; the clean
and tidy apartment; the flowers placed on the stand opposite the bed;
the green jalousies left half open to admit the cooling breeze; the
delicious rose-water sprinkled around the room, and giving it an
aromatic fragrance; and the orange, or tamarind, or other delicacy ever
ready within reach to cool the fevered mouth, and remind you of the
ceaseless care which thus anticipates your every want. All these, and
even more, attested the kindness of my host’s family. Yet everything was
done in so unobtrusive a manner that, for a long while, I was ignorant
to whom I was indebted for this care. I saw no one but the nurse, the
physician, and Mr. and Mrs. Neville. But I could not help fancying that
there were others who sometimes visited my sick chamber, although as yet
I had never been able to detect them, except by the fresh flowers which
they left every morning as evidences of their presence. More than once,
on suddenly awaking from sleep, I fancied I heard a light footstep
retreating behind my bed, and once I distinguished the tone of a low
sweet voice which sounded on my ear, tired as it was of the grating
accents of the nurse, like music from Paradise. Often, too, I heard,
through the half open blinds that concealed the entrance to a
neighboring room, the sounds of a harp accompanied by a female voice;
and, at such times, keeping my eyes closed lest I should be thought
awake and the singer thus be induced to stop, I have listened until my
soul seemed fairly “lapped into Elysium.” The memory of that ample
apartment, with its spotless curtains and counterpanes, and the wind
blowing freshly through its open jalousies, is as vivid in my memory
to-day as it was in the hour when I lay there, listening to what seemed
the seraphic music of that unseen performer. I hear yet that voice, so
soft and yet so silvery, now rising clear as the note of a lark, and now
sinking into a melody as liquid as that of flowing water, yet ever, in
all its variations, sweet, and full, and enrapturing. Such a voice I
used to dream of in childhood as belonging to the angels in heaven. Our
dreams are not always wrong!
At length I was sufficiently recruited in strength to be able to sit up,
and I shall ever remember the delicious emotions of the hour when I
first took a seat by the casement and looked out into the garden, then
fragrant with the dew of the early morning. I saw the blue sky smiling
overhead, I heard the low plashing of a fountain in front of my window,
I inhaled the delicate perfume wafted to me by the refreshing breeze,
and as I sat there my soul ran over, as it were, with its exceeding
gladness, and I almost joined my voice, from very ecstasy, with that of
the birds who hopped from twig to twig, carolling their morning songs.
As I sat thus looking out, I heard a light footstep on the gravel walk
without, and directly the light, airy form of a young girl emerged from
a secluded walk of the garden, full in my view. As she came opposite my
window she looked up as if inadvertently, for, catching my eye, she
blushed deeply and cast her gaze on the ground. In a moment, however,
she recovered herself, and advanced in the direction she had been
pursuing. The first glance at the face had revealed to me the
countenance of her I had been instrumental in rescuing from the pirates.
My apartment, like all those on the island, was on the ground floor, and
when Miss Neville appeared she was already within a few feet of me. I
rose and bowed, and noticing that she held a bunch of newly gathered
flowers in her hands, I said,
“It is your taste, then, Miss Neville, which has filled the vase in my
room every morning with its flowers. You cannot know how thankful I am.
Ah! would that all knew with what delight a sick person gazes on
flowers!”
She blushed again, and extending the bouquet to me, said with something
of gaiety,
“I little thought you would be up to-day, much less at so early an hour,
or perhaps I might not have gathered your flowers. Since you can gaze on
them from your window they will be less attractive to you when severed,
like these, from their parent stem.”
“No—never,” I answered warmly, “indeed your undeserved kindness, and
that of your uncle and aunt, I can never forget.”
She looked at me in silence with her large, full eye a moment ere she
replied, and I could see that they grew humid as she gazed. Her voice,
too, softened and sank almost to a whisper when at length she spoke.
“Undeserved kindness! And can we ever forget,” she said, “what we owe to
you?”
The words, as well as the gentle tone of reproof in which they were
spoken, embarrassed me for a moment, and my eyes fell beneath her gaze.
As if unwilling further to trust her emotions, she turned hastily away
as she finished. When I looked up she was gone.
We met daily after this. The _ennui_ of a convalescent made me look
forward to the time she spent with me as if it constituted my whole day.
Certainly the room seemed less cheerful after her departure. Often would
I read while she sat sewing. At other times we indulged in conversation,
and I found Miss Neville’s information on general subjects so extensive
as sometimes to put me to the blush. She had read not only the best
authors of our own language, but also those of France, and her remarks
proved that she had thought while she read. She was a passionate admirer
of music, and herself a finished performer. For all that was beautiful
in nature she had an eye and soul. There was a dash of gaiety in her
disposition, although, perhaps, her general character was sedate, and
late events had if anything increased its prominent trait. Her tendency
to a gentle melancholy—if I may use the phrase—was perceptible in her
choice of favorite songs. More than once, when listening to the simple
ballads she delighted to sing, have I caught the tears rolling down my
cheeks, so unconsciously had I been subdued by the pathos of her voice
and song.
In a few days I was sufficiently convalescent to leave my room, and
thenceforth I established myself in the one from which I had heard the
mysterious music. This apartment proved to be a sort of boudoir
appropriated to the use of Miss Neville, and it was her performance on
the harp that I had heard during my sickness. Hers too had been the
figure which I had seen once or twice flitting out of sight on my
awaking from a fevered sleep.
It is a dangerous thing when two young persons, of different sexes, are
thrown together in daily intercourse, especially when one, from his very
situation, is forced to depend on the other for the amusement of hours
that would otherwise hang heavily on him. The peril is increased when
either party is bound to the other by any real or fancied ties of
gratitude. But during the first delicious fortnight of convalescence I
was unconscious of this danger, and without taking any thought of the
future I gave myself wholly up to the enjoyment of the hour. For Miss
Neville I soon came to entertain a warm sentiment of regard, yet my
feelings for her were of a far different nature from those I entertained
for Annette. I did not, however, stop to analyze them, for I saw, or
thought I saw, that the pleasure I felt in Ellen’s society was mutual,
and I inquired no further. Alas! it never entered into my thoughts to
ask whether, while I contented myself with friendship, she might not be
yielding to a warmer sentiment. Had I been more vain perhaps this
thought might have occurred to me. But I never imagined—blind fool that
I was—that this constant intercourse betwixt us could endanger the
peace of either. If I could, I would have coined my heart’s blood sooner
than have won the love which I could not return. Yet such was my
destiny. My eyes were opened at length to the consequences of my
indiscretion.
We had been conversing one day of the expected arrival of the Arrow, and
I had spoken enthusiastically of my profession, and, perhaps, expressed
some restlessness at the inactive life I was leading, when I noticed
that Ellen sighed, looked more closely at her work, and remained silent
for some time. At length she raised her eyes, however, and said,
“How can you explain the passion which a sea-man entertains for his
ship? One would think that your hearts indulged in no other sentiment
than this engrossing one.”
“You wrong us, indeed, Ellen,” I said, “for no one has a warmer heart
than the sailor. But we have shared so many dangers with our ship, and
it has been to us so long almost our only world, that we learn to
entertain a sort of passion for it, which, I confess, seems a miracle to
others, but which to us is perfectly natural. I love the old Arrow with
a sentiment approaching to monomania, and yet I have many and dear
friends whom I love none the less for this passion.”
I saw that her bosom heaved quicker than usual at these words, and she
plied her needle with increased velocity. Had I looked more narrowly, I
might have seen the color faintly coming and going in her cheek, and
almost heard her heart beating in the audible silence. But I still was
blind to the cause of this emotion. By some unaccountable impulse I was
led to speak of a subject which I had always avoided, though not
intentionally—my early intimacy with Annette, and her subsequent rescue
from the brig. Secure, as I thought, of the sympathy of my listener, and
carried away by my engrossing love for Annette, I dwelt on her story for
some time, totally unconscious of the effect my words were producing on
Ellen. My infatuation on that morning seems now incredible. As I became
more earnest with my subject, I noticed still less the growing agitation
of my listener, and it was not until I was in the midst of a sentence in
which I paused for words to express the loveliness of Annette’s
character, that I saw that Ellen was in tears. She was bending low over
her work so as to conceal her agitation from my eye, but as I hesitated
in my glowing description, a bright tear-drop fell on her lap. The truth
broke on me like a flash of lightning. I saw it all as clear as by a
noonday sun, and I wondered at my former blindness. I was stung to the
heart by what I had just been saying, for what agony it must have
inflicted on my hearer! I felt my situation to be deeply embarrassing,
and broke short off in my sentence. After a moment, however, feeling
that silence was more oppressive than anything else, I made a desperate
effort and said,
“Ellen!”
It was a single word, and one which I had addressed to her a hundred
times before; but perhaps there was something in the tone in which I
spoke it, that revealed what was passing in my mind, for, as she heard
her name, the poor girl burst into a flood of tears, and covering her
face with her hands she rushed from the room. She felt that her secret
was disclosed. She loved one whose heart was given to another.
That day I saw her no more. But her agony of mind could not have been
greater than my own. There is no feeling more acute to a sensitive mind
than the consciousness that we are beloved by one whom we esteem, but
whose affection it is impossible for us to requite. Oh! the bitter
torture to reflect that by this inability to return another’s love, we
are inflicting on them the sharpest of all disappointments, and perhaps
embittering their life. Point me out a being who is callous to such a
feeling, and I will point you out a wretch who is unworthy of the name
of man. He who can triumph in the petty vanity of being loved by one for
whom he entertains no return of affection, is worse than a fop or a
fool—he is a scoundrel of the worst stamp. He deserves that his home
should be uncheered by a WOMAN’S smiles, that his dying hour should be a
stranger to her tender care. God knows! to her we are indebted for all
the richest blessings and holiest emotions of our life. While we
remember that we drank in our life from a mother’s breast—that we owed
that life a thousand times afterwards to a mother’s care—that the love
of a sister or the deeper affection of a wife has cheered us through
many a dark hour of despair, we can never join that flippant school
which makes light of a woman’s truth, or follow those impious revilers
who would sneer at a woman’s love. The green sod grows to-day over many
a lovely, fragile being, who might still have been living but for the
perfidy of our sex. There is no fiction in the oft-told story of a
broken heart. It is, perhaps, a consumption that finally destroys the
victim, but alas! the barb that infused the poison first into the frame
was—a hopeless love. How many fair faces have paled, how many hearts
have grown cold, how many seraphic forms have passed, like angel
visitants, from the earth, and few have known the secret of the blight
that so mysteriously and suddenly withered them away. Alas! there is
scarcely a village churchyard in the land, in which some broken hearted
one does not sleep all forgotten in her lonely bed. The grave is a
melancholy home; but it has hope for the distressed: there, at least,
the weary are at rest.
It is years since I have visited the grave of Ellen, and I never think
of her fate without tears coming into my eyes.
I said I saw her no more that day. When I descended to the breakfast
table on the following morning, I looked around, and, not beholding her,
was on the point of inquiring if she was ill; but, at the instant, the
door opened and one of my old mess-mates appeared, announcing to me that
the Arrow was in the offing, where she awaited me—he having been
despatched with a boat to bring me on board. As I had been expecting her
arrival for several days, there was little preparation necessary before
I was ready to set forth. My traps had been already despatched when I
stood in the hall to take leave of the family. My thoughts, at this
moment, recurred again to Ellen, and I was, a second time, on the point
of asking for her, when she appeared. I noticed that she looked pale,
and I thought seemed as if she had been weeping. Her aunt said,
“I knew Ellen had a violent headache, but when I found that you were
going, Mr. Cavendish, I thought she could come down for a last adieu.”
I bowed, and taking Miss Neville’s hand raised it to my lips. None there
were acquainted with our secret but ourselves, yet I felt as if every
eye was on me, and from the nervous trembling of Ellen’s fingers, I knew
that her agitation was greater than my own.
“God bless you, dear Miss Neville,” I said, and, in spite of my efforts,
my voice quivered, “and may your days be long and happy.”
As I dropped her hand, I raised my eyes a moment to her face. That look
of mute thankfulness, and yet of mournful sorrow, I never shall forget.
I felt that she saw and appreciated my situation, and that even thus her
love was made evident. If I had doubted, her words would have relieved
me.
“Farewell!” she said, in a voice so low that no one heard it but myself.
“I do not blame you. God be with you!”
The tears gushed to her eyes, and my own heart was full to overflowing.
I hastily waved my hand—for I had already taken leave of the
rest—sprang into the carriage, rode in silence to the quay, and
throwing myself into the stern sheets of the barge, sat, wrapt in my own
emotions and without speaking a word, until we reached the ship. That
night I early sought my hammock; and there prayed long and earnestly for
Ellen.
The memory of that long past time crowds on me to-night, and I feel it
would be a relief to me to disburden my full heart of its feelings. I
will finish this melancholy story.
It was a short six months after my departure from Mr. Neville’s
hospitable mansion, when we came to anchor again in the port, with a
couple of rich prizes, which we had taken a short time before, in the
Gulf Stream. The first intelligence I heard, on landing, was that Miss
Neville was said to be dying of a consumption. Need I say that a pang of
keenest agony shot through my heart? A something whispered to me that I
was the cause, at least partially, of all this. With a faltering tongue
I inquired the particulars. They were soon told. I subsequently learned
more, and shall conceal nothing.
From the day when I left ——, the health of Ellen had begun gradually
to droop. At first her friends noticed only that she was less gay than
usual, and once or twice they alluded jestingly to me as the secret of
her loss of spirits. But when the expression of agony, which at such
times would flit across her face, was noticed, her friends ceased their
allusions. Meanwhile her health began sensibly to be affected. She ate
little. She slept in fitful dozes. No amusement could drive away the
settled depression which seemed to brood upon her spirits. Her friends
resorted to everything to divert her mind, but all was in vain. With a
sad, sweet smile, she shook her head at their efforts, as if she felt
that they could do nothing to reach her malady.
At length she caught a slight cold. She was of a northern constitution,
and when this cold was followed by a permanent cough, her friends
trembled lest it foreboded the presence of that disease, which annually
sweeps off its thousands of the beautiful and gay. Nor were they long in
doubt. Their worst fears were realised. Consumption had fixed its iron
clutch on her heart, and was already tugging at its life-strings. The
worm was gnawing at the core of the flower, and the next rough blast
would sweep it from the stalk. As day by day passed, she drew nearer to
the grave. Her eye grew sunken, but an unnatural lustre gleamed from its
depths—the hectic flush blazed on her cheek—and that dry hacking
cough, which so tortures the consumptive, while it snaps chord after
chord of life, hourly grew worse.
At an early period of Ellen’s illness, Mrs. Neville, who had been to the
orphan girl a second mother, divined the secret of her niece’s malady.
She did not, however, urge her confidence on her charge, but Ellen soon
saw that her aunt knew all. There was a meaning in her studied avoidance
of my name, which could not be mistaken. Ellen’s heart was won by this
delicacy, until, one day, she revealed everything. Mrs. Neville pressed
her to her bosom at the close of the confession, and, though nothing was
said, Ellen felt that the heart of her second mother bled for her.
As death drew nearer, Ellen’s thoughts became gradually freed from this
world. But she had still one earthly desire—she wished to see me before
she died. Only to Mrs. Neville, however, was this desire confided, and
even then without any expectation that it could be gratified. When,
however, the Arrow stopped so opportunely in ——, her petitions became
so urgent, that Mrs. Neville sent for me. With a sad heart I obeyed her
summons.
“The dear girl,” she said, when she met me in the ante-room, “would not
be denied, and, indeed, I had not the heart to refuse her. Oh! Mr.
Cavendish, you will find her sadly changed. These are fearful trials
which God, in his good providence, has called us to undergo,” and tears
choked her further utterance. I was scarcely less affected.
It would be a fruitless task in me to attempt to describe my emotions on
entering the chamber of the dying girl. I have no recollection of the
furniture of the room, save that it was distinguished by the exquisite
neatness and taste which always characterized Ellen. My eyes rested only
on one object—the sufferer herself.
She was reclining on a couch, her head propped up with pillows, and her
right hand lying listlessly on the snowy counterpane. How transparent
that hand seemed, with the blue veins so distinctly seen through the
skin that you could almost mark the pulsation of the blood beneath. But
it was her countenance which most startled me. When I last saw her—save
at that one parting interview—her mild blue orbs smiled with a
sunniness that spoke the joy of a young and happy heart. Now the wild
hectic of consumption blazed on her cheek, and her eyes had a brilliancy
and lustre that were not of earth. Then, her rich golden tresses floated
in wavy curls across her shoulders—now, that beautiful hair was
gathered up under the close-fitting cap which she wore. Then her face
was bright with the glow of health—alas! now it was pale and
attenuated. But in place of her faded loveliness had come a more
glorious beauty; and the glad smile of old had given way to one of
seraphic sweetness. When she extended her wan hand toward me, and spoke
in that unrivalled voice which, though feeble, was like the symphony of
an Æolian harp, it seemed, to my excited fancy, as if an angel from
heaven had welcomed me to her side.
“This is a sad meeting,” she said; for my emotions, at the sight of her
changed aspect, would not permit me to speak—“but why grieve? It is all
for the best. It might seem unmaidenly to some,” she continued, with a
partial hesitation, while, if possible, a brighter glow deepened on her
cheek, “for me thus to send for you; but I trust we know each other’s
hearts, and this is no time to bow to the formalities of life. I feel
that I am dying.”
“Say not so, dear Ellen,” I gasped, while my frame shook with agony at
the ruin I had brought about—“oh! say not so. You will yet recover. God
has many happy years in store for you.”
“No, no,” she said touchingly, “this world is not for me; I am but a
poor bruised reed—it were better I were cast aside. But weep not, for
oh! I meant not to upbraid you. No, never, even in my first agony, have
I blamed _you_—and it was to tell you this that I prayed I might
survive. Yes! dearest—for it cannot be wrong now to confess my love—I
would not that you should suppose I condemned you even in thought. You
saved my life—and I loved you before I knew it myself. You weep—I know
you do not despise me—had we met under better auspices, the result
might have been—” here her voice choked with emotion—“might have been
different.” I could only press her hand. “Oh! this is bliss,” she
murmured, after a pause. “But it was not so to be,” she added, in a
moment, with a saddened tone, which cut me to the heart. “I should love
to see her of whom you speak—she is very beautiful, is she not? In
heaven the angels are all beautiful.” Her mind wandered. “I have heard
their music for days, and every day it is clearer and lovelier. Hear!”
and with her finger raised, her eye fixed on the air, and a rapt smile
on her radiant countenance, she remained a moment silent.
Tears fell from us like rain. But by and bye, her wandering senses
returned; and a look of unutterable wo passed over her face. Oh! how my
heart bled. I know not what I said; I only know that I strove to soothe
the dying moments of that sweet saint, so suffering, yet so forgiving. A
look of happiness once more lightened up her face, and, with a sweet
smile, she talked of happiness and heaven. As we thus communed, our
hearts were melted. Gradually her voice assumed a different tone,
becoming sweeter and more liquid at every word, while her eyes shone no
longer with that fitful lustre, but beamed on me the full effulgence of
her soul once more.
“Raise me up,” she said. I passed my arm around her, and gently lifted
her up. Her head reposed on my shoulder, while her hand was still
clasped in mine. She turned her blue eyes on me with a seraphic
expression, such as only the sainted soul in its parting moment can
embody, and whispered—
“Oh! to die thus is sweet! Henry, dear Henry—God bless you! In heaven
there is no sorrow,” and then, in incoherent sentences, she murmured of
bright faces, and strange music, and glorious visions that were in the
air. The dying musician said that he then knew more of God and nature
than he ever knew before, and it may be, that, as the soul leaves the
body, we are gifted with a power to see things of which no mortal here
can tell. Who knows? In our dying hour we shall learn.
The grave of Ellen is now forgotten by all, save me. The grass has grown
over it for long years. But often, in the still watches of the night, I
think I hear a celestial voice whispering in my ear; and sometimes, in
my dreams, I behold a face looking, as it were, from amid the stars: and
that face, all glorious in light, is as the face of that sainted girl. I
cannot believe that the dead return no more.
* * * * *