LIGHT ON THE ISLAND.
Her wretched brain gave way,
And she became a wreck at random driven,
Without one glimpse of reason or of Heaven.
Long remained Miss Seabright with her head bowed upon her hand in bitter
thought. Twice a servant came and announced dinner without her seeing or
hearing him. The third time, when he approached and spoke close to her
ear, she raised her head languidly and said:
“Ask Miss Joe to dine without me.”
And when Miss Joe herself came in with anxious inquiries about her
health, and affectionate offers of tea and toast and jellies, she
answered, with a bitter smile:
“Oh, be easy, dear friend; a little fasting will not hurt my flesh and
blood!”
Day waned, and still she maintained her silent and thoughtful posture.
Night came, and a servant entered with candles. The glare of light
aroused her, and, looking up, she saw the dark face of the man turned
ashen gray with fear. “What is the matter, Cæsar?”
“Light on de island, miss; you kin see it plain as star a-shinin’!”
“Light on the island? Well, I will go and see myself. Where can this
light be seen from?”
“From the garret window, miss, sure as you’re born.”
“Go on before me,” she said, rising from her recumbent posture, and
following the man up the several flight of stairs to the attic.
Arrived there, in the very front room where Elsie had been a prisoner on
the last night of her stay at Mount Calm, they paused.
Miss Seabright advanced to the window, threw it up, and looked out at
the clear, brilliant, starlight night. There was not a breath of wind
stirring. The air was still and cold. The rolling hills and plains white
with snow, and intersected only by the belt of forest around the foot of
Mount Calm, reached silently on to the dark boundary of the sea.
“Why, I see no light at sea; none anywhere except the myriad lights of
stars in heaven!” said Miss Seabright, letting down the window.
“Bress your soul, miss, no more you can’t; leastwise you puts out de
candle and looks t’rough the spyglass!”
“Why, here’s a fellow who, not having causes of trouble enough near him,
must put out the light and take a telescope to find out distant ones!
Well, set the candle outside the door, and give me the glass.” And
taking the telescope she went again to the window and hoisted it. “Yes,”
she said, after taking sight, “yes, there is a light shining still and
clear, and apparently fixed near the ruins of the old lodge!”
“Oh, it can be seen plain as possible from the village,” said Miss Joe,
who now entered, followed by other members of the household.
Miss Seabright closed the window, and, turning to the assembled group,
said, with her singular smile:
“Well, now, this is really a very small affair for conjecture, and could
interest none but a country family in the depth of winter. Let us go
downstairs. It is probably some poor, lone soul, who, having no shelter,
has put together the ruins of the old lodge and lives there and supports
himself by fishing and shooting.”
“Yes,” said Miss Joe, “that might be well enough, and nobody thinks
nothing of it, only you see, honey, the folks from the village have been
over on the island in the broad daytime searching, and they can’t find
the leastest signs of human habitations; the poor, dear old lodge is
more tumble-downder than ever, as in course it must naturally be every
winter, with no one to keep the dear, old crippled thing on its legs.
Lord, child, the neighbors from Huttontown found all so desolute that
the very stars of heaven were shining down into the water collected in
the cellar. No roof, no chimneys, no floors even; nothing but the
lonesome, desolute walls and the stagnant cellar. They didn’t find
anybody, nor any sign of anybody, though they searched all over the
island—but, mind, that was at sunset, and that night about dark the
light blazed up there as bright as ever!”
“Why did not the neighbors go and search then?”
“They did. They got into the boats and rowed straight back, watching the
ghostly light all the time, and just afore they landed it was out.”
“Did they carry a light in their boats?”
“Certain.”
“Then the great problem is solved. It was some fugitive slave, a refugee
on the island, who, seeing the approach of the boats by the lights they
carried, extinguished his light and concealed himself.”
“As if he could. Lor’, child, where could he hide away on that island?
All plain and bare, and bleak as it is; no bit o’ woods, no hollow;
nothing but the outside walls o’ the old lodge, with its cellar full o’
water, and the lonesome, bare trees standin’ far apart like ghosts.”
“True, very true; there is not a hiding place possible on the island.
But I cling to the thought of the fugitive refugee, who, seeing the
invaders, probably extinguished his light and took boat for the open
sea.”
“No, honey, that w’a’nt it. Bless you, they thought of that at once, and
lit more pine knots, and separated, and run all around the coast of the
little islet, and flashed their lights about, and couldn’t see sign of a
boat on the waters.”
“Then I am at the end of conjecture. Come, let us go down. It is cold up
here. Take up the candle, Cæsar,” said Miss Seabright, turning to go
from the room.
“Yes, let’s go down; it is so cold up here. And supper’s ready in the
little red parlor. That’s what I come to tell you, when these niggers
all followed me. I told Milly, long as you hadn’t eat any dinner, and
felt sort o’ low spirited, to get supper airly, and br’il a pair of
pa’tridges. A cup o’ good, strong Young Hyson tea, with light biscuits
and br’iled pa’tridges, is very good for lowness o’ spirits. I knows it,
’cause I’ve tried it myself.”
They hurried through the bleak passages, and downstairs.
Miss Seabright, preceded by the servant bearing the candle, and followed
by the old lady, entered the parlor. The comfortable little parlor, with
its thick carpet, heavy curtains, soft sofa, bright fire, and elegant
tea-table, was certainly a specific for mere low spirits. The old lady
bustled past Garnet, and set the urn upon the table, burning her fingers
slightly, and rubbing them, while she exclaimed cheerily:
“There now, sit down. As there’s no one here but you and me, you know,
you can draw the end of the sofy to the table and loll on that, while I
pour out your tea and butter you a biscuit. Cæsar, you cut up that
pa’tridge for your young mist’ess—not that one, you stupid creetur!
t’other one, it’s the plumpest. Now you see, honey, the maids have got
through their day’s work, for a wonder, and I have got time to stay in
the parlor and enjoy myself ’long o’ you. And so we’ll have a jolly good
evening; you can loll on the sofa and enjoy yourself with your low
spirits and cologne bottle—only don’t waste it—and I can sit here and
patch my old gown, and talk about old times.”
Garnet looked at the good-natured face of the old lady, and felt
compunction for the answer she was about to make.
“I am sorry to spoil the plan of your evening’s entertainment, Miss Joe,
but I am going to explore Hutton’s Island to-night.”
“Going to explore Hutton’s Island to-night!” exclaimed Miss Joe,
dropping knife and fork, and staring at her.
“Yes.”
“You!”
“Yes.”
“The Lord have mercy upon her! I’ve been havin’ of my misgivin’s all
this time, but now I know she’s a little deranged!” said Miss Joe to
herself. Then speaking aloud, in something of the tone one would take in
addressing a sick and delirious child, “No, no, honey, don’t think of
it! You’re sick, you know, and it is cold and dark and dangerous. Then,
it isn’t proper for a young lady to do such a thing, anyhow!”
Miss Seabright smiled a queer smile, as she replied:
“For the first objections, my good old friend, cowardice is not one of
my weaknesses; for the last”—she paused and her smile deepened in
meaning—“I made a start in life by quite innocently perpetrating a
heinous, a fatal—crime? no, impropriety! I broke no law of God or man;
yet I am told that for all that I shall be banished from society unless
I do commit a sin, in open day, in the face of society; who will then
forgive me!”
“Mad! mad!” said Miss Joe to herself, gazing at the ironical girl.
“Well!
“‘What’s _banished_ but yet free?’
I will do whatever I please—conventional or unconventional! I will break
no law of God’s or man’s, and after that is said, all is said for me.
For the rest, I will do whatever my spirit impels me to do, whether the
world likes it or not!” said Garnet, speaking more to herself than to
another, and rising and ringing the bell.
“Mad! mad! mad! and getting worse every minute,” said Miss Joe, hurrying
out, and hastening into the front hall, where Cæsar was lighting the
lamp.
“Cæsar, come here to me, quick—close. Hush! don’t say anything. Go as
hard as you can to Hemlock Hollow, and tell Mr. Lionel Hardcastle how he
must come as fast as possible here; how he’s wanted badly, very badly.
Hurry—mount a fast horse, and go as quick as ever you can!”
The man, with his eyes staring wide, ran to obey. Miss Joe then returned
to the parlor, where she found Garnet giving directions to a servant to
have two horses saddled, and prepare himself to attend her down to the
shore. Miss Seabright was giving her orders with so much calmness and
precision that the old lady thought she had a lucid interval in her
madness, and that this afforded her an excellent opportunity for
argument; so, as soon as the man retired, she said coaxingly:
“My dear child, think of it!”
“I do, Miss Joe; and the more I think of it the more I want to go. I am
determined to vary the tedious monotony of my days with a little
adventure!”
“My dear child, you have heard of the fate of Agnes! How she was either
murdered or carried off from that island by unknown ruffians!”
“I heard long ago of her mysterious disappearance, Miss Joe, and I
always thought, and think now, that in her deep despair for the sudden
loss of her husband she drowned herself. I think so the more that never
before or since that strange occurrence, has any outrage been attempted
on the island. Think of the years we lived there alone with nothing to
disturb our quiet. Why, often in the fond superstition of my childhood,
when I have waked up in the night, have I risen and gone out into the
starlight, and rambled all over the isle in the hope of surprising the
fairies at their midnight revels! Well, if I never found them, I never
found anything worse. No, Miss Joe, there is no danger. If there were, I
do not know the fear of it. That solitary light on the isle belongs to
some solitary wretch, poorer and more friendless even than we were; one
whose misfortunes or crimes make him dread and shun the approach of his
fellow-men; one whom I do not fear to seek; one whom, if I find, I shall
try to relieve. And I will tell you, if that will ease your kind anxiety
upon my account, I will direct Pompey to take a pair of pistols.”
As she finished speaking a servant appeared at the door, and announced
that the horses were ready.
She left the parlor, and soon returned prepared for her ride, and
immediately set out.
Miss Joe fidgeted up and down the hall in great disturbance of mind. In
about ten minutes after Miss Seabright had left the house the quick
trampling of horses announced the arrival of Lionel Hardcastle. He
hurried into the house, booted and spurred as he was, and asked rapidly:
“Where is Miss Seabright? Has she sent for me?”
“No, sir; no. It was me that sent for you. Come here—here in the parlor,
sir. I have got something terrible to tell you. Shut the door.”
He followed her into the parlor, closing the door as requested, and
stared with astonishment at the old lady’s excited countenance, while
with rapid enunciation she related all that had happened just before and
since his visit in the forenoon. Miss Seabright’s excited manner, her
mad resolution of going that night to Hutton’s Island to find out about
the light, and above all her “real crazy” talking about committing a sin
before the world in order “to keep in long o’ the world.” Mr. Hardcastle
listened with a sarcastic smile until he heard of her night expedition;
then his sinister face lighted up with demoniac joy, to conceal which he
quickly averted his head.
“Ha! with only one attendant, say you?”
“With no one, sir, but Pomp—sure as you’re born.”
“I must instantly go after her then.”
“Oh, do, sir! do hurry!” said Miss Joe, and in five minutes more Lionel
Hardcastle, with the dark and lowering brow of a fiend hidden by the
night, was galloping swiftly toward the coast, muttering in his heart:
“Now, scornful girl, shall my love and vengeance both be sated!”
In the meantime Garnet had reached the shore at which the Mount Calm
fleet of boats were chained—boats of all sizes, from the long skiff to
the twelve-oared canoe and the sail-boat. She entered the smallest of
the skiffs, followed by Pompey, who immediately unlocked the chain, took
the single oar, and pushed off from the sandy beach. The bay was
perfectly smooth, and reflected the dark, resplendent sky, with its
myriads beyond myriads of shining lights so distinctly that the little
skiff seemed to glide among the stars as it sped over the waters. Soon
before then lay Hutton’s Island, like a darker line upon the sea. And
there, like a single star, shone the solitary light! Yet so much deeper
was Garnet’s love of nature than of adventure, that she delivered
herself up to intense enjoyment of the starlight night on the waters,
forgetful of her errand, until the slight shock of the skiff, touching
upon the strand of the island, aroused her from her trance. Then, when
she looked up, the light on the isle was gone.
“That is very provoking! Now who would have thought that darkly and
silently as we came we should have been perceived? However, light your
pine knot, Pompey, and come along.”
Pompey had been selected as her attendant in this expedition by Miss
Seabright, as being the least superstitious and cowardly of all her men,
yet now the namesake of “The Invincible” shrank back in dread,
muttering:
“Indeed, indeed, miss, you’d better not!”
“Pompey! whoever the dweller on this isle is, it is some poor wretch,
more worthy of our pity than of our fear; weak and timid, since it
watches and hides from even such harmless visitors as we. Come along!”
“’Deed—’deed, miss, that aint good reasonin’! ’Deed, ’fore my Heavenly
Marster, aint, miss. ’Deed—’deed—’deed—’deed——” muttered Pompey, his
teeth chattering, until he lost his voice.
“Give me the torch then, Pompey; I will go before. You may follow me as
distantly as you please, and run at the first alarm!”
“I think that would be the mos’ safes’, miss; caze dey wouldn’t be so
apt to shoot a young lady, miss, as they would to shoot a colored gemman
ob my siteration in deciety.”
Without hearing Pompey’s compromise with his cowardice and his
conscience, Miss Seabright, torch in hand, walked up the gradually
ascending rise of ground to the ruins of the old lodge. From being so
long out in the night her eyes had become accustomed to it, so that now,
under the brilliant starlight, the scene was distinctly, though darkly,
before her—the ruin, the isle, and the sea. No sign of fence or outhouse
could be seen as she approached the ruined lodge, whose skeleton walls
stood up square around what seemed a deep, stagnant pond, whose
stillness was drearily broken by the plunge of some toad, snake, or
other loathsome reptile. Blinded or scared by the glare of the torch,
bats flitted to and fro about the ruined walls, water rats ran in and
out among the broken stones, and plunged into the stagnant waters, and
lastly, a huge screech-owl took flight from the blasted tree by the
fallen chimney, “making night hideous” with his yells. Profoundly
saddened by seeing the beloved home of her wild childhood so desolate,
Garnet turned silently away, and passing mournfully over the bleak
ground, reached the strand. Then passing slowly all around the beach,
she looked out upon the waters in search of any stray boat that might
contain the supposed fugitive of the isle. As far as the eye could reach
no sign of a boat could be seen. She then turned inland—if the tiny isle
could be said to have an inland—and searched carefully about, walking
around every specterlike tree standing far apart on the bare, bleak
island, and quite incapable after all of concealing the smallest
possible fugitive in the human shape. But she looked around and up into
them, as I have seen men look under candlesticks and into tiny drawers
for their missing hats, umbrellas, and boot-jacks! After her thorough
search was quite over she turned to her attendant, and said:
“Well, I am disappointed. There is positively no one here, and the
mystery of the island light is still unsolved.”
Her attendant did not answer. Thinking that he was still under the
influence of fear, she said:
“Why, Pompey, we are as safe and as quiet here as I was when I lived
here with Aunt Joe and Hugh.”
Still her follower did not speak, but rather lingered behind her, and
she herself relapsed into silence, and fell into a reverie, until she
arrived at the farthest extremity of the isle, opposite to that on which
she had landed. This was the northwestern point of the island, and the
same beach upon which she and the sole companion of her childhood, Hugh,
used to pick maninosies. Here, as she walked about watching the starlit
waves break gently on the beach, noting the numerous perforations, where
the maninosies had buried themselves in the sand, the tide of memory
rolled back, overwhelming the apprehension of the present. She saw
herself, a tiny, sprite-like child, stealing out on starlight nights,
and sitting on the pile of rocks, on this very spot, watching in fond
faith for the swimming of the nereids, and mistaking the reflection of
some purple cloud, high up in the heavens, for the royal robe of
Amphytrite in the “deep, deep sea.” She saw herself again in the
daytime, when the setting sun, like Macbeth’s blood-crimsoned hand,
would
“The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red!”
she saw herself well shod and warmly clothed, and Hugh, the manly boy,
barefooted, bareheaded, and coarsely clad, yet grandly handsome “as
Hercules ere his first labor!” Hugh, with his noble look and noble
nature; and she smiled to think of the high faith, and hope, and love
that irradiated his fine countenance, as he confidently promised to make
a fortune for her, his sister; to get wealth, rank, honor for her! And
the tears rolled down Garnet’s cheeks, as she thought of the glorious
boy, and thought how many, many years it had been since she had even
inquired his residence or his destiny.
“He thought,” she said, speaking to herself in a low self-communing
voice, “he thought to have made a fortune before me—to have conferred
wealth, rank, honor upon me! The case might be reversed—it might! oh! I
wish it could! There is only one way in which it could, and that is not
impossible, though remote. This dream that I have enshrined within my
heart—this ideal of goodness and greatness with which only I will
unite—this I owe to Hugh. And oh! if he has fulfilled in his manhood the
glorious promise of his boyhood, whatever his external fate may be, if
he has fulfilled in himself the promise of matured goodness and
greatness—then——”
“What then?” said a deep voice at her elbow.
She started slightly, and exclaimed:
“My guardian!”
“Yes, Miss Seabright, your guardian; who never found you more in need of
his guardianship than at present.”
“Sir! why have you followed me here?—where is my servant?”
“Having come upon him, cowering, several yards behind you, I took the
liberty of sending him back to the mainland, by the boat in which you
came!”
Garnet’s eyes began to blaze and darken with fearful rapidity. Yet
repressing the mounting fire of anger, she strove to ask calmly:
“And why did you ‘take the liberty’ of sending my servant away, sir? And
why have you further presumed to break upon my privacy?”
“One question at a time, if you please, Miss Seabright. I sent your
servant away that I might have the pleasure of a private interview. I
break upon your solitude for the furtherance of the same purpose.”
“And your object, sir?”
“To come to a full and final reckoning with you!” he said, his manner
suddenly becoming threatening.
Garnet pressed both hands upon her bosom, to restrain its violent
throbbings, and answered slowly:
“I thought, sir, that our last interview, of only this morning, had
finally settled all between us? Upon that occasion I told you some harsh
truths—and with some violence, which I regret; feeling sorry that the
honest verdict of my head and heart should not have been delivered with
more temperance.”
“And which you shall more deeply regret before we part, scornful girl.”
Her eyes blazed wide and full, like sudden meteors, and then fell into
darkness, as she replied, with constrained calmness:
“I pray you, sir, do not provoke me. I am subject to anger, as other
people are to ague and fever.”
“Ha, ha, ha! Is that meant for an appeal or for a threat? If for an
appeal, I am not subject to magnanimity, as other people are to
insanity!—if for a threat, how ridiculous! Be angry—furious—violent!
What can you do now? Why, thou foolish girl, thou art completely in my
power.”
“In your power! Not so, insolent creature, ‘whom it were base flattery
to call a man’; there are no circumstances whatever that could put me in
your power.”
“Why, you absurd woman! look around you. Deep and silent night hangs
over the world. You stand alone with me upon a barren, uninhabited,
sea-girt isle. How far off do you suppose the nearest human being is
from us? How loud a shriek from this lone spot could raise the distant
sleepers of the mainland from their beds?”
Garnet raised her proud head to give some indignant answer, but meeting
the gaze of her companion, the burning, scathing anger of her reply
froze in horror ere it passed her lips—for never did night lower over a
countenance darker, more dreadful with demoniacal malignity of purpose.
Garnet turned her eyes from the baleful glare of Hardcastle to throw
them over the lone and desert isle on which they stood, and for the
first time a sense of the appalling danger of her situation swam in upon
her brain, and for a moment nearly overwhelmed her. His countenance
lighted up with a fiendish triumph. He continued:
“Yes, Miss Seabright. Yes, Garnet. You have read my look and purpose
aright. This night must you and I come to a reckoning. This hour,
haughty girl, shall your pride be humbled. To-day you rejected my hand
with scorn. To-morrow shall you sue for it as for life. Ha! already my
triumph begins. You grow pale, lady.”
“No!—pale? If my cheek did so belie my soul as to grow pale before a
wretch like you, by my soul, I would paint it black for the rest of my
life, and sell myself to base servitude as being too low for any other
sphere. Oh, sir! the sudden revelation of your enormous wickedness
shocked me for a single instant, as if I had unexpectedly been
confronted with the foul fiend—that was all! And now I tell you that
even on this lone sea isle I do not feel myself to be in your power. I
am not the least afraid of you! Afraid of you? I am afraid of nothing. I
do not know the word. I never did know it; and it is not likely that you
can teach it to me.”
“By Heaven, she defies me even here!” exclaimed Hardcastle, pale with
rage, and striding toward her.
“Yes,” said Garnet, recoiling a step or two, and standing upon the
fragment of rock where she had so often sat in childhood; “yes,” she
said, reverently raising her eyes and hand, “by Heaven, I do defy you!
Under the protection of Heaven, in the name of Heaven, I do defy you!”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Thou fool! Why, what shall hinder me now from
refuting you and taking my revenge?” he said, again striding toward her.
“Off! A parley, I say! Listen to me a moment. God! myself! yourself
shall hinder you. Mr. Hardcastle, I have this hour conquered a greater
and stronger adversary than yourself—even mine own spirit! I have
overcome my anger; I have the lion of my temper chained beneath my feet.
And now, to put you down will be a much lighter task—much easier
victory. And I tell you now, in coolness, what I told you before in
heat, that I am not afraid of you. Nor shall you falsely take the tone
toward me of one who has the advantage. I know you, Mr. Hardcastle. And
I know your present evil scheme by your former revealed treachery.
Heaven purify my soul from the sin of the knowledge! I know that you now
think you have me at your mercy, and intend to terrify me into making
conditions with you.”
“In the fiend’s name, young woman, what do you mean?”
“This, to be explicit: You think to fright me, Garnet Seabright, into
the promise to become your wife, and endow you with the broad lands of
Mount Calm, upon condition of your sparing me, showing mercy to me, and
taking me safely home to Mount Calm.”
“By all the demons, girl! I wonder that you should dare to give breath
to that fear!”
“Not fear!”
“To that suspicion, then. I am amazed that you should venture to place
these conditions before me.”
“That I should detect and pluck the villainous scheme from your heart,
and hold it up before you. Well, I will go further in my defiance of
you, Mr. Hardcastle, and tell you that, threaten what you may, I will
never, under any circumstances, promise to be your wife. Now, you see
that I know I am not at your mercy.”
“By Satan, Miss Seabright, I am thunderstruck at your audacity! Girl,
you would be but a sparrow in my grasp! Who could rescue you?”
“I thank you for the word you used in illustration of my weakness. It
recalls in good time the words of a favorite old volume of mine—a book,
perchance, with which you have not chanced to meet. Listen! ‘Are not two
sparrows sold for a farthing? Verily, I say unto you, not one of these
shall fall to the ground without your Father. Are ye not of more value
than many sparrows?’ Heaven pardon me! I should not have quoted
Scripture here, Mr. Hardcastle. Nevertheless, it helps to make me
fearless now. Sir, I will tell you once for all why I do not fear you.
First, because I trust in God. Next, because I trust in myself. Finally,
because I can somewhat trust in you! Cut off as we now are from all
communion with our fellow-creatures—alone, defenseless, unprotected, and
at your mercy as I seem—you dare not harm me, and I know and feel it!
You are not mad or intoxicated; therefore, you will not. You are not of
a passionate, impetuous nature, therefore you will not. You are a
cold-blooded, clear-headed, calculating, forecasting schemer—therefore
you will not dare to do me an injury that will end in ruin to yourself.
You are a gentleman by birth, education, and position. You are a
gentleman—however undeserving of the name—and you will not exchange the
title for that of—felon! I am under the protection of God and of the
laws! Lay but your hand in insult on me, and by the Heaven that watches
over us, as soon as I reach the mainland, cost what it may to my woman’s
heart, for the sake of sacred right will I denounce you! Murder me—sink
my body in the sea!—the crime would still be traced to yourself. We were
known to have been left here alone.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! We were known to be left here
alone together! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! By none but the negro, and a negro’s
evidence is not received in any court of law! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” he
laughed, in fiendish triumph. “I have allowed you to spring from my
hands, and I have listened to your talking, only to make game of you.
Only as a cat lets a mouse run before finally seizing it. But this has
lasted long enough!” he exclaimed, ferociously springing toward her,
seizing and hurling her from the rock.
Summoning all her great strength the intrepid girl, with a mighty
effort, threw him from her, and before he could spring upon his prey
again the fragment of rock near them rolled down the slope to the
beach—a sudden light glared upon the scene, and a tall woman, wildly
clad, and waving a torch above her head, emerged, and stood before them.
The sudden irruption of this human being from the bosom of the earth did
not astonish Garnet as did the look of Lionel Hardcastle. Struck pale as
death, and statue-still, but for the universal tremor that shook his
frame, he stood and gazed with stony eyes and chattering teeth upon the
apparition. At last:
“Agnes!” he gasped, shaking as with an ague fit.
“Yes, pirate!—Agnes!” said the woman, approaching him slowly, holding
the torch above her head; then stooping, fixing her eyes intently upon
him, and thus creeping toward him, as a lioness preparing for a couch
and spring. She paused before him, and still glaring on his face, said
very slowly: “So, pirate! we meet again, at last! We meet upon the spot
of that outrage which first separated me from home and country, friends
and kindred, holiness and heaven! We meet upon this spot that you would
again desecrate with crime! We meet in an hour of retribution! For this
have I lived! For now that at last I see my mortal foe, never will I
lose sight of you again until I have put you in the hands of justice!
Never will I cease to pursue you, until I hunt you to the scaffold!
Never can I die, until I see you dead before me by the death of a
felon!”
While she spoke with such slow tones of settled hatred and determined
vengeance he held his hand in his bosom. As she ceased speaking:
“False prophetess! You die now!” he thundered, leveling the pistol he
held at her head.
She sprang forward, seized his arm, turning the weapon aside. They
struggled violently for a moment, and then the pistol was discharged,
and Lionel Hardcastle fell, shot through the chest.
Frozen with horror Garnet Seabright drew near, and stooped over the
fallen man. Agnes also bent over her prostrate foe for a moment, then
turning to Garnet, and throwing her wild hair back, she said:
“I did not kill him, madam, though if I had ’twould have been but just.”
The eyes of the dying man flared open once, and fixed upon the face of
Garnet. Raising himself upon his elbow, he said, in low and broken
tones:
“Forgive me, Garnet—and—believe this!—whatever were the hidden sins of
my youth—neither piracy nor bloodshed were among them! I was a—prisoner
among them! Ship—wreck—plank—waves—picked up—oh, God, forgive me!” His
head fell back—he rolled over in a mortal struggle, and then grew still
in death.