"Forgive--forgive me, if you can--I am dying of remorse. You deceived
me, betrayed me, in my girlhood, but I pardoned that, for I loved
you more than any other woman ever loved a man. When we met in Ohio,
by strange accident, all was reconciled. How happy I was! But when I
learned of your perfidy; when I was forced to realize that I was not
only your jilted victim, but your hoodwinked dupe; that your object
in coaxing from me my fortune was wholly selfish; that you never
meant to restore either my property or my good name; while your
kisses were warm upon my lips your heart was planning proposals to
another woman to become your wife that I, your discarded tool, could
not claim even to be regarded as your mistress; when I felt sure of
all this, I was frantic with grief and rage. I went to Washington,
saw the President, gave him all the facts and papers you had
intrusted to me. I did this in hatred, for revenge. In my madness I
wanted to crush you, to blast your hopes, to kill you, if I could.
But anger gave way to remorse. I would undo what I have done, but it
is too late. I know you cannot love me--you cannot pity or forgive. I
never shall forgive myself. There is nothing for me to live for--I am
wretched, wretched, ruined--abandoned by you and despised by the
world. When this reaches you, if it ever reaches your dear hand, I
will be out of this awful misery and free from shame.
"I send enclosed the diamond ring you gave me in Princeton--the one
you took from my finger in that farmhouse on the Miami, to write
with it on the window-pane your name, dear Aaron, my first love, and
underneath it my own.
"Salome."
The unhappy trifler having reread the reproachful lines, took up the
ring which had fallen upon the table when the letter was unfolded.
There was a small window in the side of the cabin, opening on hinges.
Burr rose, stepped to the rude casement, unfastened the bolt, thrust
his arm out as far as he could reach, holding betwixt his thumb and
finger the sparkling gem, and was about to cast it into the water; but
he checked the impulse, drew back his hand and slipped the love-token
on his little finger.
"Poor Salome!" he murmured, closing the sash. "Foolish Salome! She
thinks she is the cause of my ruin; but she is not. I wish to God I
could say I am not the cause of hers."
The fickle lover, rousing from his remorseful reverie, became the man
of action. His boat was freighted, in part, with military stores,
proof positive of warlike designs. This objective evidence must not
come to the knowledge of judge or militia-man. Burr seized an axe, and
calling one of the boatmen to his assistance, led the way to the main
storage room, where guns and ammunition, packed in chests, lay piled.
The place was closely boarded up, having no openings whatever in the
sides.
"Here, Gilpin, take the axe, while I hold the light. Cut a hole in the
side of the boat, between these two upright braces. Hurry up! Make the
space large enough to let these boxes pass through."
The boatman chopped with lusty strokes and soon hewed an opening
sufficiently long and wide through the plank siding.
"Now, take hold; help lift this, and slide it overboard."
Rapidly the two worked with might and main, casting chest after chest
overboard to sink plumb to the muddy bottom of the Mississippi. By the
time the steersman gave orders for landing on the Arkansas shore, the
telltale cargo had all been unloaded. The innocent vessel was brought
to harbor in a bend and made fast to some friendly trees.
Military officers, acting for the governor of Mississippi Territory,
lay in wait to seize Burr and Blennerhassett. To the governor's
aide-de-camp the chief conspirator said with bitter resentment:
"As to any projects or plans which may have been formed between
General Wilkinson and myself, heretofore, they are now completely
frustrated by the treacherous conduct of Wilkinson; and the world must
pronounce him a perfidious villain. If I am sacrificed, my portfolio
will prove him such."
This petulant outburst was of no avail to stave off the minions of the
law. Burr was again in the toils. He, the distinguished attorney who
had won so many cases before the New York bench, and who had presided
over the Senate of the United States, was summoned to a hearing before
a grand jury in the obscure village of Washington. What a descent from
Washington, the capital, to Washington, the frontier hamlet; from
presidency of the Senate to a prisoner's box in a backwoods
court-house!
The good genius of Burr did not desert him at the hour of this, his
second humiliating ordeal. Fortune, who had rescued him in Kentucky,
again favored him in Mississippi. The grand jury, to the chagrin of
judge and territorial governor, brought in the unexpected presentment
that Aaron Burr was not guilty of any crime or misdemeanor. The jury
was dismissed, but the prisoner was not discharged. Burr, who had many
secret friends, was advised that the governor intended to seize on his
person the moment the court should release him. The conspirator
resolved to elude judiciary and executive by flight. Prudence and
dignity, however, forbade precipitate action. Never was fugitive so
intrepid, so calm. No valet had ever regarded him less than a hero.
But how would Madam Blennerhassett judge him? She had arrived at Bayou
Pierre--that Burr knew--and the first tidings she heard of her
husband told her that he and Burr had been arrested. Burr sat down,
and penned the following:
"WASHINGTON, MISS., Jan. 31, 1807.
"_Mrs. M. Blennerhassett._
"Dear Madam: Your good husband has informed you of the miscarriage
of our plans, and of our humiliating detention by Government
officials. This temporary delay on the road to Beulah is wholly
chargeable to the treachery of one individual in whom I placed
absolute trust. No fit abiding place is yet provided for you on the
Wachita acres. And Orleans is a port closed against us. How
mortifying! Let not these tidings distress you, but draw upon the
infinite resources of a determined will. I am not discouraged--only
pestered and stung by a swarm of mosquitoes in the shape of
magistrates, militia colonels, and false witnesses. Doubtless, Mr.
Blennerhassett will be restored to you soon; as for myself, I take
all the responsibility for his misfortunes upon my shoulders.
Circumstances compel me, for the present, to move with
circumspection, but you shall hear from me in good time.
"Last night, in my sleep, I had a delightful experience. I dreamed
we were all sailing the Mediterranean, in a silken-sailed barge,
bound for Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and every spicy, flowery land. I
awoke to the 'slumbery agitation' of today's evil chances. However,
'there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' The
Kingdom is within us. You recollect old Shirley's solemn lines,
'The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things.'
The only substantial world is comprised within the two hemispheres
of the human heart.
"Dear madam, will you console Theodosia with one of your brave,
loving, womanly letters? She is the one who will suffer most from
the miserable collapse of our plans--she and poor little Gampy.
"I presume you will return to the Enchanted Ground! 'Tis a heavenly
retreat. I enclose a sprig of Spanish moss from a cypress-tree near
the village jail. Adieu,
"A. B."
The gallant traitor did not linger for the governor's catchpoll to
seize him. French leave was better than a sheriff's hospitality. Three
of Burr's faithful adherents agreed to convey him secretly, in a
skiff, to a point twenty miles from Bayou Pierre, and there to provide
him with a horse and a mounted guide, to facilitate his escape from
the Territory. In pursuance of his project, he was about to leave
Washington, on foot, to join his clandestine abettors, when he was
curtly accosted by a young man whom he was startled to recognize at
that time and place. Burr put out his hand, but the young man
haughtily withheld his own. He spoke vehemently.
"Colonel Burr, I challenged a brave man, a patriotic soldier, to fight
a duel with me, because he spoke severe words about you. He wronged
you a little, but you have wronged me much--my friends more. You
called Hamilton to the field for traducing you; I demand satisfaction
from you for treacherously involving me and my family name with your
own, in charges of disloyalty to the Government. You lied to me!"
Burr compressed his lips and filled his lungs with a quick-drawn
breath. His cheeks purpled and his eyes shot dark fire.
"Mr. Arlington, you go too far. I cannot brook insult."
"Do not brook it. Resent it. You have smutched my honor. You have
ruined the Blennerhassetts. You have betrayed a host of confiding
people. You have endeavored to destroy the Union. I can right myself
before the country and in my own estimation only by calling you to
personal account. Will you meet me with pistol or with sword?"
Burr quenched the resentful fires that burnt in his heart, and replied
calmly:
"My friend, I decline to meet you in any form of duel. You cannot
provoke me to accept your challenge. I respect you too much to kill
you. You demand satisfaction. Arlington, no satisfaction comes to
either party in a fatal conflict. The dead man is indifferent to the
boast of honor vindicated. I have fought my last duel. But don't
imagine me afraid of threats, or bullets, or swords."
The Virginian responded in milder tones.
"Can you justify your deceptions, practised on me, or make amends for
the injury done the Blennerhassetts?"
"I justify nothing. I promise no reform. My plan failed. I did my
best. I am no traitor. I meant to benefit everybody. I shall be
vindicated. Good-bye. Go, Arlington, marry the belle of Marietta, and
be a happy man."
Arlington's nostrils quivered. A second surge of anger swept over him.
Burr continued:
"I advise seriously. Win Miss Hale. I know she likes you. She is the
finest woman west of the Appalachians--or east of them. I had
matrimonial inclinings toward the paragon myself."
"That I know," said the young man, with crabbed acrimony.
"Yes, you know that. That is an additional reason, you think, for
wishing to meet me in dudgeon. A lover hates a rival, even an
unsuccessful one, and cherishes hotter resentment against the man who
steals a kiss from his lady love than against him who violates a dozen
federal constitutions, and breaks all the apron strings of his mother
country."
The flippancy of this speech renewed Arlington's animosity.
"You will not, then, permit me to right myself by the code of honor?"
"No, Arlington, as I told you, I fought my last duel on the bank of
the Hudson. Good-bye. I am not the bad man you believe me to be. But I
am under a cloud. My hopes are darkened. I would like to keep your
friendship, but cannot demand it. It was in our plans to make you a
'belted knight, a marquis, duke, and a' that,' but the Creator
anticipated me by making you a true gentleman, which is the highest
title of nobility."
Burr started on the path which led to the covert where his three
faithful friends awaited his coming, to row him down the river.
Halting for a minute, he looked back at Arlington wistfully, and said:
"I am an outcast and an outlaw. Farewell."
Burr followed the path which he hoped would extricate him from the
labyrinth of his troubles, and Arlington left the village of
Washington, and was soon on the way to New Orleans, where Evaleen Hale
expected him at the house of her uncle.