DAWNING DAY.
Courage! You travel through a darksome cave,
But still, as nearer to the light you draw,
Fresh gales will meet you from the upper air,
And wholesome dews of heaven your forehead lave.
The darkness lighten more, till full of awe
You stand in the open sunshine unaware.
R. C. TRENCH.
“Eh?—Stop! What—what name did you say?” exclaimed the hearer, in great
agitation.
“I said Desparde—Captain Valdimir Desparde, of Her Majesty’s 000th
Regiment of Foot—the man whose money, jewels, letters and name he took,
and for whom he passed himself off in this country.”
“How strange!” exclaimed our exile, as the light burst upon him.
“What is the matter? You are agitated,” exclaimed La Motte, in his turn.
“I—I—Captain Desparde was—a near relative,” stammered Valdimir.
“Oh, indeed! Then it is enough to upset you!” said Sims’s biographer,
who would then have asked many questions upon the subject had not his
young hearer besought him to proceed at once with his narrative.
“To think of you being mixed up in any way with this! No wonder you
wanted to get hold of the confession. Well, Mr. Adams, it appears that
this Captain Desparde was himself descended on one side from English
nobles, and on the other from Polish princes, and that his early youth
had been passed in Poland; but his family had come to England after the
suppression of the last attempt at revolution there, and that by the
help of his English relatives he got a commission in the English army.
His regiment was stationed at Gibraltar at the time he first met our
adventurer.”
“Yes, you told me that.”
“Well, sir, it appears that this Captain Desparde was a very wild young
fellow himself, and kept very wild company. But you might have judged as
much from the fact of his acquaintance with John Sims.”
“I should think so,” assented Valdimir.
“At all events they were great cronies, although the Anglo-Pole, being
the most skillful gambler of the two, won a good deal of the quadroon’s
money. Now came a crisis. The captain had applied for three months’
leave of absence, which he confidently expected to get and which he
intended to spend by running over to the United States and making a
short tour there. He had never been to America, he had no friends or
acquaintances over there, but still he wished to go. He provided himself
with letters of introduction from persons of distinction in London to
their peers in society in New York and Washington; also with funds for
his voyage. He was only waiting for dispatches from the Horse Guards
with his coveted furlough. But when the dispatches came at length they
contained no leave of absence for the young captain, but, on the
contrary, orders for the regiment to sail at once for Calcutta. Well,
sir, all this the captain told his boon companion that night, and in his
vexation got so drunk that Sims had to take him home to his quarters and
remain with him through the night. That night it was that the robbery
was successfully effected; but days passed before the loss was
discovered; they were in the bustle incident upon embarkation. There was
not much opportunity for thorough investigation. The regiment sailed and
the matter of the robbery was left in charge of the police. Not the
slightest suspicion attached to John Sims. He, with his booty, took
passage on a coasting vessel for Havre. And from Havre he sailed for New
York. On reaching the great American metropolis he took rooms at a
first-class hotel, registering himself as Captain Desparde. Then he
sallied forth to present his stolen letters of introduction. One of the
first letters he presented was from a gentleman in the north of England,
by the name of—of—Just let me have that pamphlet a moment, Mr. Adams,
for I really cannot recall the name just at present; but it is in the
book.”
Valdimir handed it over.
“Ah, thank you. Yes, here it is,” said La Motte, turning over the pages
and stopping at one. “A gentleman of the name of Coyle—Christopher
Coyle, Esq, of Caveland, to his brother, Donald Coyle, banker, New York.
That was it. Mr. Adams! Bless my soul, sir! you are ill! Jove! I hope
you haven’t got the fever!” cried La Motte, who, in returning the
pamphlet to Valdimir, was shocked to perceive the extreme agitation of
the young man.
“No, no, no! go on!” exclaimed the latter, urgently.
“Yes, but see here, you know! This is not agoing to do! You are shaking
like an ague! It always comes on with an ague! Let me try to get out to
the next door and have the people send for the doctor for you! I could
do that much for the man who has nursed me through my illness,”
remonstrated La Motte.
“No, no, no! I assure you I am not ill, or in danger of being ill—in
body, at least! It is the surprise—the shock! You must know that Mr.
Coyle of Caveland is an old and intimate friend of my family,” said
Valdimir, feeling that some explanation of his emotion must be made
before La Motte could be induced to go on with his story.
“Oh, ah—indeed—yes. By Jove, though, it looks like a good many of your
friends got mixed up in the life and adventures of Johnnie Sims,” said
La Motte.
“A good many _did_,” Valdimir acknowledged.
“Which, of course, accounts for your anxiety to get hold of his
confession! All right.”
“And now will you go on with the narrative, Mr. La Motte?”
“Of course I will. Well, Sims presented his letters of credit—both
social and financial—and they were all equally honored. It must have
been fun for the rogue, however, to have Mr. Donald Coyle go with him to
the banker’s on whom his bills of exchange were drawn, to identify him
as Captain Valdimir Desparde—for, of course, sir, as I told you before,
Sims first of all presented his letter of introduction from Mr. Coyle of
Caveland to Mr. Donald Coyle of Wall street, who received his brother’s
young friend with the greatest cordiality, and offered every service in
his power—the hospitality of his home, among other favors.”
As La Motte spoke, day seemed to be dawning in the long, dark night of
the young exile’s despair, and to grow lighter and brighter with every
moment and every word.
“Well, Mr. Adams, John Sims, ‘Captain Desparde,’ as he called himself,
became a frequent visitor at Mr. Donald Coyle’s house. That gentleman
had ‘one fair daughter and no more.’ Why should we tell the story that
is as old as that of Eve and the serpent? The dark, brilliant Creole
fell in love with the fair English girl, or with her fortune, or with
both. He wooed her very much as another dark gentleman wooed his love—by
telling her hair-raising, blood curding, marrow-freezing stories, and
making himself the hero of them all! He told her romances about his
maternal grandfather, the Polish Prince Valdimir Zarinski, and himself
in the fights for freedom—
‘Where they all, side by side, had striven
And o’er the dead their coursers driven,’
until the girl’s head was turned completely, and she reciprocated his
passion, and gave him leave to ‘speak to pa.’ Mr. Coyle made no serious
objection to the marriage, but some little difficulty about the
settlements, requiring also to see some authenticated statements of
Captain Desparde’s estate, or prospects, or means of supporting a wife,
outside of his pay in the army, which the old man declared to be
insufficient—difficulties which the impatient young couple cut short by
an elopement!”
“So this John Sims really married a Miss Coyle?” said Valdimir Desparde,
“with the sigh of a great deliverance.”
“Yes, he actually married a Miss Coyle! Poor, unfortunate girl! After
the runaway marriage the young couple went to the old man to ask
forgiveness. They were too late! The shock of his daughter’s elopement,
coming upon top of other severe troubles, was too much for the father to
bear. They brought on a fit of apoplexy of which he died.”
“That must have been a terrible blow to the erring daughter,” said
Valdimir.
“Yes, I should think so. To run away and get married, and come
immediately back to ask forgiveness, and to find her father dead! It was
the first of a series of severe penances she had to pay for her mad and
fatal act!”
“You spoke of other troubles that had affected Mr. Donald Coyle,” said
Valdimir.
“Ah, yes! But they were not known or suspected while he lived. After his
death it was discovered that he was utterly insolvent! His creditors
seized everything—house, furniture, clothing. His daughter was left
penniless. When she had got over the first excesses of her grief and
remorse, she explained to her husband that although her father’s fortune
was gone, yet she was the sole heiress of her uncle, Mr. Christopher
Coyle, of Caveland, who would have taken care of her if she had not been
married, and she even proposed to Sims to take her over to visit this
uncle. But, of course, Sims would as soon have jumped into the fire. For
to have gone to Caveland, where the _real_ Captain Desparde was well
known, would have been to expose himself as an impostor and subject
himself to arrest and prosecution. He was even afraid to remain in New
York lest some traveling Englishman who knew Captain Desparde should
discover him to be a fraud. He left the city with his young wife, and
for the next six years they traveled from city to city throughout the
civilized world, where he sometimes went by one name and sometimes by
another, for he lived by gambling, swindling, and—stealing. At last,
after six years of such adventure, he fetched up at Washington City,
where he took rooms at a good hotel, and registered himself and party as
‘Captain Desparde, wife, and two children.’ Here he gambled, and won
money, and lived in style, though not in the best company, for he was
known as a gambler, and suspected as an adventurer.”
“It was there, I have heard, that his Nemesis met him,” said Valdimir.
“Yes, sir; it was in Washington City that his Nemesis met him, in the
form of our member from his master’s district. I told you the fellow had
a strain of idiocy or mania in him; if he had not had would he ever have
ventured to go to Washington City, where it was at least _possible_ that
some Southerner who had known him as a boy might meet and recognize him
as a fugitive slave?”
“Perhaps his many years’ immunity from suspicion or arrest had made him
reckless. Perhaps also he placed too much confidence in the change of
his personal appearance,” suggested Valdimir.
“It may have been so, sir. But as to the change in his personal
appearance—to be sure, he had grown taller and stouter—but a remarkable
face like his retains its character always, and can never be forgotten,
or fail to be recognized. This was really what happened to him in
Washington. Our member met him at the faro-table and recognized him at
once—having known Johnnie from childhood up to his thirteenth year, and
seen him almost daily in the interim—and what is more, he saw that Sims
had also recognized him, and trembled. But mark you, sir, how well our
member—Mr. Dubourg—acted his part. He gave no sign of recognition, but
treated ‘Captain Desparde’ with all the respect he would have paid to
any other gentleman whom he had socially met. But mark you again! That
very night a letter went off to Louisiana to warn Mr. Eugene Millerue
that his fugitive slave, John Sims, was then in Washington, and a
detective was employed by Dubourg in the interests of his friend, to
keep sight of ‘Captain Desparde!’”
“Who fled, of course.”
“Oh, you may safely swear that! He was not deceived by the fair
politeness of his master’s old neighbor, whom he knew so well. He was
not thrown off his guard by bows and smiles. He stood ‘not on the order
of’ _his_ going, but went ‘at once.’ He left wife and children behind
him, and started for New York that night, probably intending to catch a
steamer for Liverpool. However, fate, or his luck, had turned, or
something was amiss with his destinies. On the train he was taken
suddenly ill—so ill, that when it reached the Baltimore station he had
to be lifted from the cars and conveyed to a hospital, followed by the
detective, in plain clothes, who had ‘shadowed’ him from Washington. He
was virtually a prisoner from that moment. He was very ill with malarial
fever for three weeks, watched over by the detective, who remained in
the neighborhood, in the pay of Dubourg, and visited the patient every
day as a friend. His wife was not notified of his condition. The man
himself did not desire it. He was flying for freedom, or intending to do
so, as soon as he should be able to go, and he could not be encumbered
with wife or children, so he did not ask that she should be told of his
illness. Nor did Mr. Dubourg think it at all proper that anything should
be said to her on the subject. He had seen her at the hotel. He told all
about it when he got home. He had seen that she was well educated and
lady-like, and was told that she was English by birth. He believed that
she had been trepanned into this degrading marriage, and he judged,
under the circumstances, that the sooner she lost all trace of this man
the better it would be for herself and her unfortunate children. So he
would not have her notified of that which was known only to himself and
the detective.”
“It was a difficult question to decide,” said Valdimir.
“It would be to _you_, sir, but it was not to him. He considered the
marriage unnatural and monstrous, and the lady a victim of a hideous
wrong! Well, sir, at the end of four weeks, just when John Sims was
preparing to renew his flight, officers sent by his master arrived at
Baltimore, armed with authority to arrest John Sims, alias Valdimir
Desparde, as a fugitive slave, and convey him back to Louisiana. Oh! but
there was a desperate scene!”
“It must have been,” assented Desparde.
“Why, Mr. Adams, he utterly denied that he was John Sims, or a slave, or
a native of Louisiana; claimed that he was a gentleman, descended from
Polish princes and English nobles, an officer in the British army and
then on his travels through the United States; said that he had never
heard of John Sims or of Mr. Eugene Millerue in his life! He threatened
the officers with prosecution for false arrest; threatened the
authorities with the interference of the British minister; threatened
the country with a war with England for the audacity of attempting to
enslave a British subject! Talked like an outraged prince!”
“All of which was to be expected,” said Valdimir.
“But all of which was in vain,” continued La Motte. “Mr. Millerue had
sent men who were able to identify Sims to the satisfaction of the State
authorities, and he was delivered over to the officers. Then a very
cruel scene ensued. Feeble as the man was from his long illness, he made
a desperate resistance and was only overpowered by main force, and then
handcuffed like a criminal and taken away.”
“Sims was a lawless adventurer, no doubt; but it was not upon _that_
account he was taken, but on account of his being a fugitive slave,
which makes all this seem very terrible to me—an Englishman,” said
Valdimir.
“No doubt it does, sir.”
“Excuse me for interrupting you. Pray proceed.”
“Well, Mr. Adams, they took Sims back to Louisiana and lodged him in
jail in New Orleans, where—he being more dead than alive—they took off
his handcuffs, and they sent for his master, Mr. Eugene Millerue. And
now, sir, comes the most revolting part of the story.”
“The murder,” muttered Valdimir.
“Yes, sir, the murder. It happened in this way: Mr. Eugene Millerue came
up from the plantation to take his slave, whom he found ill on a pallet
in the prison-cell at New Orleans. He stood over him, pitiless, cruel,
sneering. He taunted him with his assumed position and his real one;
asked him how a fine gentleman of his epicurean habits could reconcile
himself to labor in the cotton fields under a slave-driver. Now, Mr.
Adams, I should explain here that the turnkey who had opened the cell,
and who stood within the door, was the eye and ear witness to this
interview.”
“Yes, go on.”
“Well, sir, Sims was silent, sullen, and immovable. Then the master
asked other taunting and exasperating questions of the fallen and
humiliated wretch, whose only refuge was in continued silence. Eugene
Millerue, I must say it, had the temper of a demon! He was determined to
make Sims speak, and finally he threatened the man with the _lash_! Then
Sims suddenly raised himself from his pallet in a sitting position, and
looked around as if in search of some weapon, but saw none. Millerue,
who seemed to divine his thoughts, laughed scornfully as he repeated
that the overseer’s whip should soon reduce him to submission. Then it
was that Sims spoke for the first time and said:
“‘Who dares to degrade me with a blow shall die for it!’
“‘Ah, indeed! Is it so?’ Millerue retorted, and raising the riding-whip
he carried in his hand, he brought it down across the face of Sims with
a sharp force that laid the flesh open.
“Then, with the strength and swiftness of frenzy, Sims sprang from his
pallet, seized the heavy stone pitcher of water that stood by his side
and struck it down upon his master’s head with a mighty force that
crushed in the skull and laid him lifeless on the floor! It was the
spasmodic effort of a man goaded to madness! When the sudden deed was
done, the murderer reeled back and fell upon his pallet in a swoon. All
this was the work of an instant, done and over before the turnkey could
spring into the cell and cock his pistol!”
“_Oh, horrible!_” muttered Valdimir Desparde, covering his eyes as if to
shut out the vision.
“Well, sir, the alarm was given! The whole place was in arms! The still
swooning quadroon was handcuffed and carried to a stronger cell in the
‘murderers’ row.’ The body of Millerue was conveyed to the warden’s
office and the coroner was summoned. You know what followed! Sims was
brought to trial, convicted and executed for the murder of his master.”
“And—the unfortunate wife and children?” inquired Valdimir.
“I thought I had told you of their fate, sir. Soon after they were left
destitute by the attempted flight of Sims, they were turned out of their
hotel, and their luggage seized for arrears of board. By the sale of her
few remaining jewels the unhappy wife sustained herself and children for
a little while in cheap lodgings; but the news of her husband’s real
position and tragic fate reached her through the newspapers and gave her
her death-blow. She fell into extreme illness and utter destitution.
Then it was that her attending physician, I think at her request, wrote
over to old Mr. Coyle of Caveland, who within a month after came in
person to the rescue of his niece, made her comfortable while she lived,
and after her death, took her boy and girl back with him to England.”