"At last I became aware that the wheels of the carriage passed through
water. Hope revived with the thought. The hut where Osborne was to stop
was to the south of the river we were now crossing: the tide was ebbing,
and, despite the wind and storm, we passed the ford in safety; a moment
more, and the carriage stopped amid the sands. I took the unfortunate
lady in my arms, and carried her into the hut; then, fetching the
cushions of the carriage, I bade Osborne take the horses on to a covered
shed about half a mile off, which he had prepared for them, and return
immediately.
"I re-entered the hut--still Alithea lay motionless on the ground where
I had placed her. The lightning showed me her pale face; and another
flash permitted me to discover a portion of luggage brought here by
Osborne--necessary if we fled. Among other things which, soldier-like, I
always carried with me, I saw my canteen; it contained the implements
for striking a light, and tapers. By such means I could at last discover
that my victim still lived; and sometimes also she groaned and sighed
heavily. What, had happened to her I could not tell, nor by what means
consciousness might be restored. I chafed her head and hands in
spirituous waters; I made her swallow some--in vain. For a moment she
somewhat revived, but relapsed again; and the icy cold of her hands and
feet seemed to portend instant dissolution. Osborne returned, as I had
ordered; he was totally unaware of the state to which my devilish
machinations had brought my victim. He found me hanging over
her--calling her by every endearing name--chafing her hands in
mine--watching in torture for such signs of returning sense as would
assure me that I was not about to see her expire before my eyes. He was
scared by what he saw; but I silenced him, and made him light a fire,
and heat sand, which I placed at her feet; and then, by degrees, with
help of large doses of sal-volatile and other drugs, circulation was
restored. She opened her eyes and gazed wildly round, and tears gushed
from under the lids in large slow drops! My soul blessed God! Every mad
desire and guilty scheme had faded before the expectation of her death.
All I asked of Heaven was her life, and leave to restore her to her
child and her home. Heaven granted, as I thought, my prayer. The livid
streaks which had settled round her mouth and eyes disappeared; her
features lost the rigidity of convulsions, a slight colour tinged her
cheeks; her hands, late chill and stiff, now had warmth and voluntary
motions of their own. Once or twice she looked round and tried to speak.
'Gerard!' that word, the name of her boy, was murmured; I caught the
sound as I bent eagerly over her. 'He is safe--he is well,' I whispered.
'All is well; be comforted, Alithea.' The poor victim smiled; yes, her
own sweet smile dawned upon her face. 'She too is safe,' I thought. Once
again I felt my heart beat freely and at ease.
"She continued, however, in a state of torpor. There were two rooms in
the hut. I prepared a sort of couch for her in the inner one. I placed
her on it; I covered her with her cloak. By degrees the sort of
insensibility in which she sunk changed to sleep. We left her then, and
sat watching in the outer room. I kept my eyes fixed on her, and saw
that each hour added to the tranquillity of her repose; I could not hear
her breathe; for though the thunder and rain had ceased, the wind howled
and the near ocean roared; its billows, driven by the western gale,
encroached upon the sands almost to the threshold of the hut.
"A revulsion had taken place within me; I felt that there was something
dearer to me than the fulfilment of my schemes, which was her life. She
appeared almost miraculously restored, and my softened heart thanked God
and blessed her. I believed I could be happy even in eternal absence,
now that the guilt of her death was taken from my soul. Well do I
remember the kind of rapture that flowed in upon my heart, as at dawn of
day I crept noiselessly to her side, and marked the regular heaving of
her bosom; and saw her eyelids, heavy and dark with suffering, it is
true, yet gently closed over the dear orbs which again and for many a
long year would enjoy the light of day. I felt a new man, I felt happy.
In a few short hours I should receive her pardon--convey her
home--declare my own guilt; and while absolving her, offer myself as the
mark of whatever vengeance her husband might choose to take. Me!--oh,
what was I? I had no being; it was dissolved into a mere yearning for
her life--her contentment. I was about to render myself up as a criminal
to a man whose most generous act would be to meet me in the field; but
that was nothing; I thought not of it, either with gladness or regret.
She lives--she shall be restored to all she loves--she once again will
be at peace.
"These were my dreams as I hung over her, and gradually the break of day
became more decided; by the increasing light I could perceive that I had
not deceived myself, she slept a healthy, profound, healing sleep: I
returned to the outer room; Osborne had wrapped himself in his
great-coat, and lay stretched on the floor. I roused him, and told him
to go for the horses and carriage immediately, so that the first thing
that might welcome Alithea's awakening should be the offer of an
immediate return home. He gladly obeyed, and left the hut; but scarcely
was he gone than a sort of consciousness came over me, that I would not
remain with her alone; so I followed him at some little distance towards
the shed where the carriage and horses were.
"The wind had scattered every cloud, and still howled through the clear
gray morning sky; the sea was in violent commotion, and huge surges
broke heavily and rapidly on the beach. The tide was flowing fast, and
the bed of the river we had crossed so safely the night before was
covered by the waves; in a little time the ford would be impassable, and
this was another reason to hasten the arrival of the horses. To the east
each crag and precipice, each vast mountain-top, showed in dark relief
against the golden eastern sky; seaward the horizon was misty from the
gale, and the ocean stretched out inimitably; curlews and gulls screamed
as they skimmed the crested waves, and breaker after breaker dashed
furiously at my feet. It was a desolate, but a magnificent spectacle,
and my throbbing heart was in unison with its vast grandeurs. I blessed
sea, and wind, and heaven, and the dawn; the guilt of my soul had passed
from me, and without the grievous penalty I had dreaded; all again was
well. I walked swiftly on, I reached the shed. Osborne was busy with the
horses; he had done what he could for them the night before, and they
seemed tolerably fresh. I spoke cheerfully to the man, as I helped to
harness them. Osborne was still pale with fright; but when I told him
that I was going to carry the lady back to her friends, and that there
was nothing to fear, he took heart; I bade him come slowly along, that
the noise of the wheels might not waken her, if she still slept, and I
walked beside, my hand on the neck of one horse while he bestrode the
other, and we gazed around and pointed to each other signs of the recent
tempest, which had been so much more violent than I in my preoccupation
had known; and then as the idea of the ford being rendered impassable
crossed me again, I bid him get on at a quicker rate, there was no fear
of disturbing the sleeping lady, for the wheels were noiseless on the
heavy sands.
"I have mentioned that huge sand-hills were thrown up here and there on
the beach; two of the highest of these shut out all view of the hut, and
even of the river, till we were close upon them. As we passed these
mounds, my first glance was to see the state of the tide. The bed of the
river was entirely filled with dashing crested waves, which poured in
from the sea with inconceivable rapidity, and obliterated every trace of
the ford. I looked anxiously round, but it was plain we must wait for
the ebbing tide, or make a long detour to seek the upper part of the
stream. As I gazed, something caught my eyes as peculiar. The foam of
the breaking waves was white, and this object also was white; yet was it
real, or but the mockery of a human form? For a moment my heart ceased
to beat, and then with wings to my feet I ran to the hut: I rushed into
the inner room--the couch was deserted, the whole dwelling empty! I
hurried back to the river's brink and strained my eyeballs to catch a
sight of the same fearful object; it was there! I could not mistake, a
wave lifted up and then again overwhelmed and swallowed it in its abyss,
the form, no longer living, the dead body of Alithea. I threw myself
into the water, I battled with the waves, the tide bore me on. Again and
again I was blinded and overwhelmed by the surges, but still I held on,
and made my way into the middle of the roaring flood. As I rose gasping
from one large billow that had, for more than a minute, ingulfed me in
its strangling depths, I felt a substance strike against me;
instinctively I clutched at it, and grasping her long streaming hair,
now with renewed strength and frantic energy I made for shore. I was as
a plaything to the foaming billows; but by yielding to them, by
suffering myself to be carried up the tide to where the river grew
shallower and the waves less powerful, I was miserable enough at last to
escape. Fool! did I not know that she was dead!--why did I not, clasping
her in my arms, resign my life to the waters? No! she had returned to me
from the gates of death the night before, and I madly deemed the miracle
would be twice performed.
"I reached the bank. Osborne, trembling and ghastly, helped me to lift
her on shore; we endeavoured by various means to recall the spark of
life--it was too late. She had been long in the water, and was quite
dead!
"How can I write these words, how linger on these hideous details? Alas!
they are for ever before me; no day, no hour passes but the whole scene
is acted over again with startling vividness--and my soul shrinks and
shudders from the present image of death. Even now that the dawn of
Greece is breaking among the hills--that the balmy summer air fans my
cheek--that the distant mountain-tops are gilded by the morning beams,
and the rich, tranquil beauty of a southern clime is around--yet even
now the roar of that distant ocean is in my ear, the desolate coast
stretches out far away, and Alithea lies pale, drenched, and lifeless at
my feet.
"I saw it all; and how often and for ever do I go over in my thoughts
what had passed during the interval of my absence! She had awoke
refreshed--she collected her scattered senses--she remembered the
hideous vision of her carrying off. She knew not of my relenting--she
feared my violence--she resolved to escape; she was familiar with that
shore; its rivers and the laws which governed their tides were known to
her. She believed that she could pass the water in safety, for often,
when the bed of the estuary was apparently full, she knew that she had
forded the stream on horseback, and the waters scarce covered the
animal's fetlock. Intent on escaping the man of violence, of reaching
her beloved home, she had entered the stream without calculating the
difference of a calm neap tide, and the mass of irresistible waves borne
up by the strong western wind; they perhaps seemed less terrible than I;
to fly from me, she encountered, delivered herself up to them! and there
she lay, destroyed, dead, lost for ever!
"No more of this! What then I did may, I now conceive, appear more
shocking to my countrymen than all that went before. But I knew little
of English customs. I had gone out an inexperienced stripling to India,
and my modes of action were formed there. I now know that when one dies
in England, they keep the lifeless corpse, weeping and watching beside
it, for many days, and then, with lingering ceremonies and the
attendance of relations and friends, lay it solemnly in the dismal tomb.
But I had seen whole armies mown down by the sword and disease; I was
accustomed to the soldier's hastily-dug grave in a climate where
corruption follows fast upon death. To hide the dead with speed from
every eye was the Indian custom.
"And then, should I take the corpse of Alithea, wet with the ocean tide,
ghastly from the throes of recent death, and bear her to her home, and
say, here she is--she enjoyed life and happiness yester-evening; I bore
her away, behold my work! Should I present myself to her husband, answer
his questions, detail the various stages of my crime, and tamely await
his vengeance or his pardon! Never!
"Or should I destroy myself at her side, and leave our bodies to tell a
frightful tale of mystery and horror? The miserable terrors of my
associate would of itself have prevented this catastrophe. I had to
reassure and protect him.
"My resolution was quickly made not to outlive my victim--and, making
atonement by my death, what other penalty could I be called upon to pay?
But my death should not be a tale to appal or amuse the vulgar, or to
swell with triumph the heart of Alithea's tyrant husband. Secrecy and
oblivion should cover all. My plan was laid, and I acted accordingly.
"Osborne entered into the design with alacrity. He was moved by other
feelings, he was possessed by an agony of fear; he did not doubt but
that we should be accused of murdering the hapless lady, and the image
of the gallows flitted before his eyes.
"Understanding each other without many words, Osborne said that in the
shed where we had placed the horses he had remarked a spade; it was so
early that no one was about to observe him, and he went to fetch it. He
returned in about half an hour; I sat keeping watch the while by the
dead, and feasted my eyes with the sight of my pale victim as she lay at
my feet. Of what tough materials is man formed, that my heart-strings
did not break, and that I outlived that hour!
"Osborne returned, and we went to work. Some ten yards above high-water
mark there was a single leafless, moss-grown, skeleton tree, with
something like soil about its roots, and sheltered from the spray and
breeze by the vicinity of a sand-hill; close to it we dug a deep grave.
I placed the cushions in it on which her fair form, all warm and soft,
had reposed, during the preceding night. Then I composed her stark
limbs, banding the long wet tresses of her abundant hair across her
eyes, for ever closed, crossing her hands upon her pure, death-cold
bosom; I touched her reverently--I did not even profane her hand by a
kiss; I wrapped her in her cloak, and laid her in the open grave. I tore
down some of the decaying boughs of the withered tree, and, arching them
above her body, threw my own cloak above, so with vain care to protect
her lifeless form from immediate contact with the soil. Then we filled
up the grave, and, scattering dry sand above, removed every sign of
recent opening. This was performed in silence, or with whispered
words--the roaring waves were her knell, the rising sun her funeral
torch; I was satisfied with the solemnity of the scene around, and I was
composed, for I was resolved on death. Osborne trembled in every limb,
and his face rivalled in hue her wan, bloodless countenance.
"We carefully removed every article from the hut, and put all in the
same state as when we found it. I did not, indeed, fear discovery; who
would imagine that my course would be to the desolate seabeach? and if
they did, and found all, I should be far, I should be dead. But Osborne
was eager to obliterate every mark of the hut having been visited. When
he was satisfied that he had accomplished this, without looking behind,
I got into the carriage, we drove with what speed we could to Lancaster,
and thence to Liverpool. Osborne was in a transport of fear till he got
on board an American vessel: fortunately, the wind having veered towards
the north, there was one about to weigh anchor. I placed a considerable
sum of money in my accomplice's hands, and recommended discretion. He
would have questioned me as to my own designs, but he respected my stern
silence, and we parted never to meet again. A small coasting vessel,
bound for Plymouth, was at that moment making her way out of harbour; I
hailed a man on board, and threw myself on to the deck.
"Elizabeth can tell the rest. She knows how I landed in a secluded
village of Cornwall, with the intent there to make due sacrifice to the
outraged manes of Alithea. Still I grieve for the unaccomplished
purpose; still I repine that I did not there die. She stopped my hand.
An angel, in likeness of a human child, arrested my arm; and winning my
wonder by her extraordinary loveliness, and my interest by her orphan
and desolate position, I seemed called upon to live for her sake. The
struggle was violent, for I longed to make atonement by my death; and I
longed to forget my crimes and their consequences in the oblivious
grave. At first I thought that the respite I granted myself would be
short; but it lasted for years; and I dragged out a living death, having
survived love and hope: remorse my follower; ghastly images of crime and
death my comrades. I travelled from place to place, pursued by Alithea's
upbraiding ghost and my own torturing thoughts. By frequent change of
place, I sought to assuage my pangs; I believe that I increased them.
They might perhaps have been mitigated by the monotony of a stationary
life. But a traveller's existence is all sensation, and every emotion is
rendered active and penetrating by the perpetual variation of the
appearances of natural objects. Thought and feeling awaken with the sun,
and dewy eve and the radiant stars cause the eyes to turn towards the
backward path; while darkness, felt palpably, as one proceeds onward in
an unknown land, awakens the snakes of conscience. The storm and
expected wreck are images of retribution; while yet the destruction I
pined for receded from before my thirsting lips.
"Yet still I dragged on life, most unworthily and unworthy, till on a
day I saw the son of my victim at Baden. I witnessed misery, widely
spread, through my means; and felt that her disimbodied spirit must
curse me for the evil I had brought on her beloved child. I remembered
all she had fondly said of him: and the cloudless beauty of his face,
his joyous laugh, and free step when last I saw him at her side. He was
blighted and destroyed by me; gloomy, savage, and wild, eternal sorrow
was written on his brow, fear and hatred gleamed in his eyes. Such by my
means had the son of Alithea become; such had his base-minded father
rendered him; but mine the guilt--mine be the punishment! What a wretch
was I, to live in peace and security, ministered to by an angel--while
this dearest part of herself was doomed to anguish, and to the
unmitigated influence of the demon for ever at his side, through my
accursed means.
"From that hour I became thrice hateful to myself; I had tried to live
for my Elizabeth; but that idea passed away with every other solace, in
which hitherto I had iniquitously indulged. I resolved to die; but as a
taint has been cast by the most villanous heart in the world upon her
hallowed name, my first task was to redeem that out of her unworthy
husband's hands; and yet I could not, I would not, while living,
disclose the truth and give a triumph to my enemy. But soon, oh, very
soon, will the soil of Greece drink up my life-blood! and while this
writing proclaims her innocence, I shall be sheltered by the grave from
the taunts and revilings of men.
"And you, dear child of my affection, who have been to me as a blessing
immediate from Heaven, who have warmed my heart with your love and
smoothed the fierceness of my temper by your unalterable sweetness; who
having blessed me with your virtues, clinging to the ruin with a
fidelity I believed impossible, how shall I say farewell to you? Forgive
your friend that he deserts you; long ago he deserted himself and the
better part of life; it is but the shell of him that remains; and that
corroded by remorse, and the desire to die. You deserve better than to
have your young days clouded by the shadow of my crime thrown over them.
Forget me, and be happy; you must be so, while I--The sun is up; the
martial trumpet sounds. It is a joy to think that I shall have a
soldier's grave."