“As when a lion in his den,
Hath heard the hunters' cries,
And rushes forth to meet his foes,
So did the Douglas rise--”
_Percy_.
Alice Dunscombe did not find the second of the prisoners buried, like
Griffith, in sleep, but he was seated on one of the old chairs that
were in the apartment, with his back to the door, and apparently looking
through the small window, on the dark and dreary scenery over which the
tempest was yet sweeping in its fury. Her approach was unheeded, until
the light from her lamp glared across his eyes, when he started from his
musing posture, and advanced to meet her. He was the first to speak.
“I expected this visit,” he said, “when I found that you recognized my
voice; and I felt a deep assurance in my breast, that Alice Dunscombe
would never betray me.”
His listener, though expecting this confirmation of her conjectures,
was unable to make an immediate reply, but she sank into the seat he had
abandoned, and waited a few moments, as if to recover her powers.
“It was, then, no mysterious warning! no airy voice that mocked my ear;
but a dread reality!” she at length said. “Why have you thus braved the
indignation of the laws of your country? On what errand of fell mischief
has your ruthless temper again urged you to embark?”
“This is strong and cruel language, coming from you to me, Alice
Dunscombe,” returned the stranger, with cool asperity, “and the time
has been when I should have been greeted, after a shorter absence, with
milder terms.”
“I deny it not; I cannot, if I would, conceal my infirmity from myself
or you; I hardly wish it to continue unknown to the world. If I have
once esteemed you, if I have plighted to you my troth, and in my
confiding folly forgot my higher duties, God has amply punished me for
the weakness in your own evil deeds.”
“Nay, let not our meeting be embittered with useless and provoking
recriminations,” said the other; “for we have much to say before you
communicate the errand of mercy on which you have come hither. I know
you too well, Alice, not to see that you perceive the peril in which
I am placed, and are willing to venture something for my safety. Your
mother--does she yet live?”
“She is gone in quest of my blessed father,” said Alice, covering her
pale face with her hands; “they have left me alone, truly; for he, who
was to have been all to me, was first false to his faith, and has since
become unworthy of my confidence.”
The stranger became singularly agitated, his usually quiet eye glancing
hastily from the floor to the countenance of his companion, as he paced
the room with hurried steps; at length he replied:
“There is much, perhaps, to be said in explanation, that you do not
know. I left the country, because I found in it nothing but oppression
and injustice, and I could not invite you to become the bride of a
wanderer, without either name or fortune. But I have now the opportunity
of proving my truth. You say you are alone; be so no longer, and try
how far you were mistaken in believing that I should one day supply the
place to you of both father and mother.”
There is something soothing to a female ear in the offer of even
protracted justice, and Alice spoke with less of acrimony in her tones,
during the remainder of their conference, if not with less of severity
in her language.
“You talk not like a man whose very life hangs but on a thread that the
next minute may snap asunder. Whither would you lead me? Is it to the
Tower at London?”
“Think not that I have weakly exposed my person without a sufficient
protection,” returned the stranger with cool indifference; “there are
many gallant men who only wait my signal, to crush the paltry force of
this officer like a worm beneath my feet.”
“Then has the conjecture of Colonel Howard been true I and the manner in
which the enemy's vessels have passed the shoals is no longer a mystery!
you have been their pilot!”
“I have.”
“What! would ye pervert the knowledge gained in the springtime of your
guileless youth to the foul purpose of bringing desolation to the doors
of those you once knew and respected! John! John! is the image of the
maiden whom in her morning of beauty and simplicity I believe you did
love, so faintly impressed, that it cannot soften your hard heart to the
misery of those among whom she has been born, and who compose her little
world?”
“Not a hair of theirs shall be touched, not a thatch shall blaze, nor
shall a sleepless night befall the vilest among them--and all for your
sake, Alice! England comes to this contest with a seared conscience,
and bloody hands, but all shall be forgotten for the present, when both
opportunity and power offer to make her feel our vengeance, even in her
vitals. I came on no such errand.”
“What, then, has led you blindly into snares, where all your boasted aid
would avail you nothing? for, should I call aloud your name, even here,
in the dark and dreary passages of this obscure edifice, the cry would
echo through the country ere the morning, and a whole people would be
found in arms to punish your audacity.”
“My name has been sounded, and that in no gentle strains,” returned the
Pilot, scornfully, “when a whole people have quailed at it, the craven
cowardly wretches flying before the man they had wronged. I have lived
to bear the banners of the new republic proudly in sight of the three
kingdoms, when practised skill and equal arms have in vain struggled to
pluck it down. Ay! Alice, the echoes of my guns are still roaring
among your eastern hills, and would render my name more appalling than
inviting to your sleeping yeomen.”
“Boast not of the momentary success that the arm of God has yielded to
your unhallowed efforts,” said Alice; “for a day of severe and heavy
retribution must follow: nor flatter yourself with the idle hope
that your name, terrible as ye have rendered it to the virtuous, is
sufficient, of itself, to drive the thoughts of home, and country, and
kin, from all who hear it.--Nay, I know not that even now, in listening
to you, I am not forgetting a solemn duty, which would teach me to
proclaim your presence, that the land might know that her unnatural son
is a dangerous burden in her bosom.”
The Pilot turned quickly in his short walk; and, after reading her
countenance, with the expression of one who felt his security, he said
in gentler tones:
“Would that be Alice Dunscombe? would that be like the mild, generous
girl whom I knew in my youth? But I repeat, the threat would fail to
intimidate, even if you were capable of executing it. I have said that
it is only to make the signal, to draw around me a force sufficient to
scatter these dogs of soldiers to the four winds of heaven.”
“Have you calculated your power justly, John?” said Alice, unconsciously
betraying her deep interest in his safety. “Have you reckoned the
probability of Mr. Dillon's arriving, accompanied by an armed band of
horsemen, with the morning's sun? for it's no secret in the abbey that
he is gone in quest of such assistance.”
“Dillon!” exclaimed the Pilot, starting; “who is he? and on what
suspicion does he seek this addition to your guard?”
“Nay, John, look not at me, as if you would know the secrets of my
heart. It was not I who prompted him to such a step; you cannot for a
moment think that I would betray you! But too surely he has gone; and,
as the night wears rapidly away, you should be using the hour of grace
to effect our own security.”
“Fear not for me, Alice,” returned the Pilot proudly, while a faint
smile struggled around his compressed lip: “and yet I like not this
movement either. How call you his name? Dillon! is he a minion of King
George?”
“He is, John, what you are not, a loyal subject of his sovereign
lord the king; and, though a native of the revolted colonies, he has
preserved his virtue uncontaminated amid the corruptions and temptations
of the times.”
“An American! and disloyal to the liberties of the human race! By
Heaven, he had better not cross me; for if my arm reach him, it shall
hold him forth as a spectacle of treason to the world.”
“And has not the world enough of such a spectacle in yourself? Are ye
not, even now, breathing your native air, though lurking through
the mists of the island, with desperate intent against its peace and
happiness?”
A dark and fierce expression of angry resentment flashed from the eyes
of the Pilot, and even his iron frame seemed to shake with emotion, as
he answered:
“Call you his dastardly and selfish treason, aiming, as it does, to
aggrandize a few, at the expense of millions, a parallel case to the
generous ardor that impels a man to fight in the defence of sacred
liberty? I might tell you that I am armed in the common cause of my
fellow-subjects and countrymen; that though an ocean divided us in
distance, yet are we a people of the same blood, and children of the
same parents, and that the hand which oppresses one inflicts an injury
on the other. But I disdain all such narrow apologies. I was born on
this orb, and I claim to be a citizen of it. A man with a soul not to
be limited by the arbitrary boundaries of tyrants and hirelings, but one
who has the right as well as the inclination to grapple with oppression,
in whose name so ever it is exercised, or in whatever hollow and
specious shape it founds its claim to abuse our race.”
“Ah! John, John, though this may sound like reason to rebellious ears,
to mine it seemeth only as the ravings of insanity. It is in vain ye
build up your new and disorganizing systems of rule, or rather misrule,
which are opposed to all that the world has ever yet done, or ever will
see done in peace and happiness. What avail your subtleties and false
reasonings against the heart? It is the heart which tells us where our
home is, and how to love it.”
“You talk like a weak and prejudiced woman, Alice,” said the Pilot, more
composedly; “and one who would shackle nations with the ties that bind
the young and feeble of your own sex together.”
“And by what holier or better bond can they be united?” said Alice. “Are
not the relations of domestic life of God's establishing, and have not
the nations grown from families, as branches spread from the stem, till
the tree overshadows the land? 'Tis an ancient and sacred tie that binds
man to his nation; neither can it be severed without infamy.”
The Pilot smiled disdainfully, and throwing open the rough exterior
of his dress, he drew forth, in succession, several articles, while a
glowing pride lighted his countenance, as he offered them singly to her
notice.
“See, Alice!” he said, “call you this infamy! This broad sheet of
parchment is stamped with a seal of no mean importance, and it bears the
royal name of the princely Louis also! And view this cross! decorated as
it is with jewels, the gift of the same illustrious hand; it is not apt
to be given to the children of infamy, neither is it wise or decorous
to stigmatize a man who has not been thought unworthy to consort with
princes and nobles by the opprobrious name of the 'Scotch Pirate.'”
“And have ye not earned the title, John, by ruthless deeds and bitter
animosity? I could kiss the baubles ye show me, if they were a thousand
times less splendid, had they been laid upon your breast by the hands
of your lawful prince; but now they appear to my eyes as indelible blots
upon your attainted name. As for your associates, I have heard of them;
and it seemeth that a queen might be better employed than encouraging
by her smiles the disloyal subjects of other monarchs, though even
her enemies. God only knows when His pleasure may suffer a spirit of
disaffection to rise up among the people of her own nation, and then
the thought that she has encouraged rebellion may prove both bitter and
unwelcome.”
“That the royal and lovely Antoinette has deigned to repay my services
with a small portion of her gracious approbation is not among the least
of my boasts,” returned the Pilot, in affected humility, while secret
pride was manifested even in his lofty attitude. “But venture not a
syllable in her dispraise, for you know not whom you censure. She is
less distinguished by her illustrious birth and elevated station,
than by her virtues and loveliness. She lives the first of her sex in
Europe--the daughter of an emperor, the consort of the most powerful
king, and the smiling and beloved patroness of a nation who worship at
her feet. Her life is above all reproach, as it is above all earthly
punishment, were she so lost as to merit it; and it has been the will of
Providence to place her far beyond the reach of all human misfortunes.”
“Has it placed her above human errors, John? Punishment is the natural
and inevitable consequence of sin; and unless she can say more than has
ever fallen to the lot of humanity to say truly, she may yet be made
to feel the chastening arm of One, to whose eyes all her pageantry and
power are as vacant as the air she breathes--so insignificant must it
seem when compared to his own just rule! But if you vaunt that you have
been permitted to kiss the hem of the robes of the French queen, and
have been the companion of high-born and flaunting ladies, clad in their
richest array, can ye yet say to yourself, that amid them all ye have
found one whose tongue has been bold to tell you the truth, or whose
heart has sincerely joined in her false professions?”
“Certainly none have met me with the reproaches that I have this night
received from Alice Dunscombe, after a separation of six long years,”
returned the Pilot.
“If I have spoken to you the words of holy truth, John, let them not
be the less welcome, because they are strangers to your ears. Oh! think
that she who has thus dared to use the language of reproach to one whose
name is terrible to all who live on the border of this island, is led to
the rash act by no other motive than interest in your eternal welfare.”
“Alice! Alice! you madden me with these foolish speeches! Am I a monster
to frighten unprotected women and helpless children? What mean these
epithets, as coupled with my name? Have you, too, lent a credulous ear
to the vile calumnies with which the policy of your rulers has ever
attempted to destroy the fair fame of those who oppose them, and those
chiefly who oppose them with success? My name may be terrible to the
officers of the royal fleet, but where and how have I earned a claim to
be considered formidable to the helpless and unoffending?”
Alice Dunscombe cast a furtive and timid glance at the Pilot, which
spoke even stronger than her words, as she replied:
“I know not that all which is said of you and your deeds is true. I have
often prayed, in bitterness and sorrow, that a tenth part of that which
is laid to your charge may not be heaped on your devoted head at the
great and final account. But, John, I have known you long and well, and
Heaven forbid, that on this solemn occasion, which may be the last, the
last of our earthly interviews, I should be found wanting in Christian
duty, through a woman's weakness. I have often thought, when I have
heard the gall of bitter reproach and envenomed language hurled against
your name, that they who spoke so rashly, little understood the man they
vituperated. But, though ye are at times, and I may say almost always,
as mild and even as the smoothest sea over which ye have ever sailed,
yet God has mingled in your nature a fearful mixture of fierce passions,
which, roused, are more like the southern waters when troubled with the
tornado. It is difficult for me to say how far this evil spirit may lead
a man, who has been goaded by fancied wrongs to forget his country and
home, and who is suddenly clothed with power to show his resentments.”
The Pilot listened with rooted attention, and his piercing eye seemed to
reach the seat of those thoughts which she but half expressed; still
he retained the entire command of himself, and answered, more in sorrow
than in anger:
“If anything could convert me to your own peaceful and unresisting
opinions, Alice, it would be the reflections that offer themselves at
this conviction, that even you have been led by the base tongues of my
dastardly enemies, to doubt my honor and conduct. What is fame, when a
man can be thus traduced to his nearest friends? But no more of these
childish reflections! they are unworthy of myself, my office, and the
sacred cause in which I have enlisted!”
“Nay, John, shake them not off,” said Alice, unconsciously laying her
hand on his arm; “they are as the dew to the parched herbage, and may
freshen the feelings of your youth, and soften the heart that has grown
hard, if hard it be, more by unnatural indulgence than its own base
inclinations.”
“Alice Dunscombe,” said the Pilot, approaching her with solemn
earnestness, “I have learnt much this night, though I came not in quest
of such knowledge. You have taught me how powerful is the breath of the
slanderer, and how frail is the tenure by which we hold our good names.
Full twenty times have I met the hirelings of your prince in open
battle, fighting ever manfully under that flag which was first raised to
the breeze by my own hands, and which, I thank my God, I have never yet
seen lowered an inch; but with no one act of cowardice or private wrong
in all that service can I reproach myself; and yet, how am I rewarded!
The tongue of the vile calumniator is keener than the sword of the
warrior, and leaves a more indelible scar!”
“Never have ye uttered a truer sentiment, John, and God send that ye may
encourage such thoughts to your own eternal advantage,” said Alice, with
engaging interest “You say that you have risked your precious life in
twenty combats, and observe how little of Heaven's favor is bestowed
on the abettors of rebellion! They tell me that the world has never
witnessed a more desperate and bloody struggle than this last, for which
your name has been made to sound to the furthermost ends of the isle.”
“'Twill be known wherever naval combats are spoken of!” interrupted the
Pilot, the melancholy which had begun to lower in his countenance giving
place to a look of proud exultation.
“And yet its fancied glory cannot shield your name from wrong, nor are
the rewards of the victor equal, in a temporal sense, to those which
the vanquished has received. Know you that our gracious monarch, deeming
your adversary's cause so sacred, has extended to him his royal favor?”
“Ay! he has dubbed him knight!” exclaimed the Pilot with a scornful
and bitter laugh: “let him be again furnished with a ship, and me
with another opportunity, and I promise him an earldom, if being again
vanquished can constitute a claim!”
“Speak not so rashly, nor vaunt yourself of possessing a protecting
power that may desert you, John, when you most need it, and least expect
the change,” returned his companion; “the battle is not always to the
strong, neither is the race to the swift.”
“Forget you, my good Alice, that your words will admit of a double
meaning? Has the battle been to the strong! Though you say not well
in denying the race to the swift. Yes, yes, often and again have the
dastards escaped me by their prudent speed! Alice Dunscombe, you know
not a thousandth part of the torture that I have been made to feel, by
high-born miscreants, who envy the merit they cannot equal, and detract
from the glory of deeds that they dare not attempt to emulate. How
have I been cast upon the ocean, like some unworthy vessel that is
commissioned to do a desperate deed, and then to bury itself in the ruin
it has made! How many malignant hearts have triumphed as they beheld my
canvas open, thinking that it was spread to hasten me to a gibbet, or to
a tomb in the bosom of the ocean! but I have disappointed them!”
The eyes of the Pilot no longer gazed with their piercing and settled
meaning; but they flashed with a fierce and wild pleasure, as he
continued, in a louder voice:
“Yes, bitterly have I disappointed them! Oh! the triumph over my fallen
enemies has been tame to this heartfelt exultation which places me
immeasurably above those false and craven hypocrites! I begged, I
implored, the Frenchmen, for the meanest of their craft, which possessed
but the common qualities of a ship of war; I urged the policy and
necessity of giving me such a force, for even then I promised to be
found in harm's way; but envy and jealousy robbed me of my just dues,
and of more than half my glory. They call me pirate! If I have claim to
the name, it was furnished more by the paltry outfit of my friends, than
by any act towards my enemies!”
“And do not these recollections prompt you to return to your allegiance,
to your prince and native land, John?” said Alice, in a subdued voice.
“Away with the silly thought!” interrupted the Pilot, recalled to
himself as if by a sudden conviction of the weakness he had betrayed;
“it is ever thus where men are made conspicuous by their works--but to
your visit--I have the power to rescue myself and companions from this
paltry confinement, and yet I would not have it done with violence, for
your sake. Bring you the means of doing it in quiet?”
“When the morning arrives, you will all be conducted to the apartment
where we first met.--This will be done at the solicitation of Miss
Howard, under the plea of compassion and justice, and with the professed
object of inquiring into your situations. Her request will not be
refused; and while your guard is stationed at the door, you will be
shown, by another entrance, through the private apartments of the wing,
to a window, whence you can easily leap to the ground, where a
thicket is at hand; afterwards we shall trust your safety to your own
discretion.”
“And if this Dillon, of whom you have spoken, should suspect the truth,
how will you answer to the law for aiding our escape?”
“I believe he little dreams who is among the prisoners,” said Alice,
musing, “though he may have detected the character of one of your
companions. But it is private feeling, rather than public spirit, that
urges him on.”
“I have suspected something of this,” returned the Pilot, with a smile,
that crossed those features where ungovernable passions that had so
lately been exhibited, with an effect that might be likened to the
last glimmering of an expiring conflagration, serving to render the
surrounding ruin more obvious. “This young Griffith has led me from my
direct path with his idle imprudence, and it is right that his mistress
should incur some risk. But with you, Alice, the case is different; here
you are only a guest, and it is unnecessary that you should be known
in the unfortunate affair. Should my name get abroad, this recreant
American, this Colonel Howard, will find all the favor he has purchased
by advocating the cause of tyranny necessary to protect him from the
displeasure of the ministry.”
“I fear to trust so delicate a measure to the young discretion of my
amiable friend,” said Alice, shaking her head.
“Remember, that she has her attachment to plead in her excuse; but dare
you say to the world that you still remember, with gentle feelings, the
man whom you stigmatize with such opprobrious epithets?”
A slight color gleamed over the brow of Alice Dunscombe, as she uttered,
in a voice that was barely audible:
“There is no longer a reason why the world should know of such a
weakness, though it did exist.” And, as the faint glow passed away,
leaving her face pale nearly as the hue of death, her eyes kindled with
unusual fire, and she added: “They can but take my life, John; and that
I am ready to lay down in your service!”
“Alice!” exclaimed the softened Pilot, “my kind, my gentle Alice--”
The knock of the sentinel at the door was heard at this critical
moment. Without waiting for a reply to his summons, the man entered the
apartment; and, in hurried language, declared the urgent necessity that
existed for the lady to retire. A few brief remonstrances were uttered
by both Alice and the Pilot, who wished to comprehend more clearly each
other's intentions relative to the intended escape: but the fear of
personal punishment rendered the soldier obdurate, and a dread of
exposure at length induced the lady to comply. She arose, and was
leaving the apartment with lingering steps, when the Pilot, touching her
hand, whispered to her impressively:
“Alice, we meet again before I leave this island forever?”
“We meet in the morning, John,” she returned in the same tone of voice,
“in the apartments of Miss Howard.”
He dropped her hand, and she glided from the room, when the impatient
sentinel closed the door, and silently turned the key on his prisoner.
The Pilot remained in a listening attitude, until the light footsteps
of the retiring pair were no longer audible, when he paced his confined
apartment with perturbed steps, occasionally pausing to look out at the
driving clouds and the groaning oaks that were trembling and rocking
their broad arms in the fitful gusts of the gale. In a few minutes the
tempest in his own passions had gradually subsided to the desperate
and still calmness that made him the man he was; when he again seated
himself where Alice had found him, and began to muse on the events of
the times, from which the transition to projecting schemes of daring
enterprise and mighty consequences was but the usual employment of his
active and restless mind.