“So those two voices met; so Joy and Death
Mingled their accents; and, amidst the rush
Of many thoughts, the listening poet cried,
O! thou art mighty, thou art wonderful,
Mysterious Nature! Not in thy free range
Of woods and wilds alone, thou blendest thus
The dirge note and the song of festival;
But in one _heart_, one changeful human heart,--
Ay, and within one hour of that strange world,--
Thou call’st their music forth, with all its tones
To startle and to pierce!--the dying Swan’s,
And the glad Sky-lark’s,--Triumph and Despair!”
Our tale is running rapidly to a close; and we must no more loiter to
gather flowers by the wayside, but depict the events which now come
thickly crowding together, to make up the mingled catastrophe.
When the sheriff and his scores of exulting assistants reached the
village with their prisoner,--the desperate villain, whom they had,
with so much difficulty and danger, dislodged and seized in his rocky
den in the mountains,--the latter requested a postponement of his
examination till the afternoon of the next day, that he might have time
to send for, and obtain, his lawyer. This request was the more readily
granted, as the party sent up the lakes with Moose-killer, for more
evidence, had not yet returned, and as their expected discoveries,
or at least their presence with those already made, might and would
be required to fasten the crime, in law, on the undoubted criminal.
The court, therefore, was adjourned to an indefinite hour the next
afternoon; and the crowd, except the court, its officers, and those
from a distance, dispersed to assemble, the next day, with increased
numbers, to witness the final disposal of one who had now become, in
the minds of all, the monster outlaw of the settlement. The prisoner
was then taken to an adjoining old and empty log-house, a straw-bed
laid on the floor for him, and a strong guard placed over him, both
within and around the house without; so that, being constantly under
the eyes of vigilant, well-armed men, there should be no possibility
of his escape, either by his own exertions, or by the aid of secret
accomplices. And these precautions being faithfully observed, the night
wore away without alarm, or any kind of disturbance. The fore part of
the succeeding day also passed, though people soon began to pour into
the village from all quarters, with singular quietness,--all seeming
to be oppressed with that deep feeling of hushed expectation which
may often be seen to predispose men to a sort of restless silence,
on the known eve of an exciting event. And, through the whole of it,
no incident or circumstance transpired affecting the great interest
of the occasion, till about noon; when the news spread that the
anxiously-awaited party from the upper lakes were approaching. As they
came up to the tavern, the now excited crowd quickly closed around
them, and eagerly listened to their report. Of Claud Elwood, whom they
had unknowingly passed and repassed, on their way up and down the
lakes, while he was lying helpless in the secluded retreat to which his
fair and devoted preserver had conveyed him, they had heard nothing,
seen nothing, and discovered no clues by which his locality or fate
could be traced or conjectured. But they had visited, and carefully
examined, the place pointed out by Moose-killer as the one where Mark
Elwood was supposed to have been slain; and, although they had failed
to find the body on the land, or in the lake, with the best means they
could command for dragging it, and although time had measurably effaced
the traces by which the sagacious Indian had judged of the suspected
deed, yet every appearance went to confirm the strict accuracy of his
previous account. And, in addition, they at last found, slightly
imbedded in the bark of a tree, in the range of the path, and a short
distance to the south of the spot, a rifle bullet, which had evidently
been, before striking the tree, smeared with a bloody substance, and
also slightly flattened, as it might naturally have been, in striking a
bone, on its way through a man’s body. This seemed to establish, as a
fact, the commission of a murder; but on whom committed was still left
a debatable question. The movers of the prosecution had hoped, through
this mission up the lakes, to obtain evidence which would conclusively
establish the guilt of the prisoner. But, to effect this, and thus
insure his conviction, something more conclusive was still obviously
wanting. And it was then that the indefatigable hunter made, as the
reader has already been apprised, his last rapid but fruitless journey
to the chief’s residence, in the hope that his mysteriously absent
daughter might have returned with discoveries that would complete the
chain of evidence. He having come back, however, without accomplishing
any part of his object, and the prisoner’s counsel having arrived, and,
after a consultation with his client, become strangely clamorous to
proceed at once to the examination, they finally concluded to go into
the hearing with the presumptive evidence in possession, and, backing
it with the showing of Gaut’s previously suspicious character, for
which they were now well prepared, call themselves willing to abide the
result. All this being now settled, the court was declared open, and
the counsel for the prosecution was requested to proceed with the case.
After the attorney for the prosecution had read the papers on which it
was founded, and made a statement of what was expected to be proved in
its support, the witnesses in that behalf were called and sworn. The
first testimony introduced was that of Codman and others, to show the
deep malice and implied threats of revenge which the prisoner had so
clearly exhibited towards the supposed murdered man, in the prosecution
of which the latter was a principal mover, the winter before. But
this evidence, when sifted by the long and severe cross-examination
that followed, and found to consist, instead of definite words, almost
wholly of menacing looks and other silent demonstrations of rage, which
are ever extremely difficult to bring out in words with their original
effect, amounted to so little that the prisoner’s counsel attempted to
turn it into ridicule with considerable show of success. Testimony in
relation to the canoe of the Elwoods, recently found washed up among
the rapids, which was next introduced, was found, when tested in the
same way, in despite of the opinions of the practical boatmen who were
the witnesses, to be almost equally inconclusive of the prisoner’s
guilt; so much so, indeed, that his counsel seemed greatly inclined to
appropriate it, as showing the probable manner in which the Elwoods, if
they were not still both alive, had come to their end.
By this time,--as the court of inquiry was not opened till nearly
sunset, and as the examinations, cross-examinations, and preliminary
speeches of the opposing counsel, on disputed points of evidence, had
been drawn out to seemingly almost interminable lengths,--by this time,
it was nearly midnight; and the prosecuting party now proposed an
adjournment till morning. But this was strenuously opposed by Gaut’s
lawyer, who, affecting to believe that the whole affair was a malicious
prosecution growing out of the suit last winter, and got up by certain
men who had banded together to revenge their defeat on that occasion,
and ruin his client, boldly demanded that the prisoner should be
discharged, or his conspiring enemies be compelled to proceed at once
with “their sham prosecution,” as he put on the face to call it.
This stand, which was obviously instigated by the prisoner himself,
who narrowly watched the proceedings, and, from time to time, was seen
whispering in the ear of his counsel, produced the desired effect: the
motion was overruled, and the counsel for the prosecution told to go on
with his evidence.
Moose-killer was then called on to the witnesses’ stand, when, for
the first time, Gaut exhibited evident signs of uneasiness, and
whispered something in the ear of his counsel, who thereupon rose and
went into a labored argument against the admissibility of the evidence
of an Indian, who was a pagan, and knew nothing about the God whose
invocation constituted the sacred effect of the oath he had taken.
But, on the questioning of the court, Moose-killer declared his full
belief in the white Christian’s God and Bible, and this objection was
overruled, and the witness requested to proceed with his story.
The demure Indian, unmoved by the burning and vengeful eye of Gaut,
which was kept constantly riveted upon him, then succinctly but clearly
related all the facts, of which the reader has been apprised in the
preceding pages, in relation to the atrocious deed under investigation.
And at the conclusion of his story he produced the bullet found
imbedded in the tree, called attention to its smeared and flattened
appearance, and then asked for the prisoner’s rifle, to see whether
it would fit in the bore. The rifle in question was then brought into
court, the bullet applied to the muzzle, and pronounced an exact fit! A
shout of exultation burst from the crowd, and in a tone so significant
of the public feeling, and of their unanimous opinion on this point,
that for a moment both the prisoner and his counsel were completely
disconcerted. But, soon rallying, the latter started to his feet, and,
having summoned back to its place his usual quantum of brass, demanded
“the privilege of just looking at that rifle they were all making such
a fuss about.” It was accordingly handed to him; when, after noticing
the size of the bore, which was a common one, and then glancing at some
other rifles held in the hands of different spectators, he confidently
requested that the first half-dozen rifles to be found among the crowd
should be brought on to the stand. Five of the designated number were
soon gathered and brought forward; and it was found, in the comparison,
that three of them were of the same bore as that of Gaut, and that the
ball in question would fit one as well as another.
“There! what has become of your bullet evidence now?” sneeringly
exclaimed the exulting attorney. “Wondrous conclusive, a’n’t it? But,
as weak as the whole story is, I will make it still weaker. It is my
turn with you now, my foxy red friend,” he added, settling back in his
seat to commence his cross-examination.
His vaunted cross-examination, however, resulted in giving him no
advantage. The Indian could not be made, in the whole hour the
brow-beating inquisitor devoted to him, either to cross himself or
vary a single statement of his direct testimony, and he was petulantly
ordered to leave the stand.
“Not done talk yet,” said Moose-killer, lingering, and glancing
inquiringly to the court and the counsel for the prosecution. “More
story me tell yet.”
Gaut’s lawyer looked up doubtfully to the witness; but, thinking he
must have told all he could to implicate the prisoner, and that any
thing now added might show discrepancies, of which some advantage could
be taken, remained silent, and, for once, interposed no objection to
letting the Indian take his own course; when the latter, on receiving
an encouraging intimation to speak from the other attorney, proceeded,
in his peculiarly broken but graphic manner, to make in substance the
following extraordinary revelation:
About ten years ago (he said), there came, from what part nobody
knew, a strange, questionable personage, into the neighborhood of
a few families of St. François Indians, encamping for the hunting
season around the head-water lakes of the Long River, as he termed the
Connecticut, and went to trapping for sable and beaver. But he soon
fell into difficulties with the Indians, who believed he robbed their
traps; and with one family in particular he had a fierce and bitter
altercation. This family had a small child, that began to ramble from
the wigwam out into the woods, and that, one night, failed to come
home. They suspected who had got it, and next day followed the trail
to the man’s camp; when they soon found where the child had been
butchered, cut up, and used to bait his sable-traps! But the monster,
becoming alarmed, had fled, and never afterwards could be found.
With this, Moose-killer, who had evidently put his story in this shape
to avoid interruption, suddenly paused, and then, with one hand raised
imploringly towards the court and the other stretched out menacingly
towards the prisoner, wildly exclaimed:
“O, that was _my_ child! and this was the man who murdered it!”
A thrill of horror ran through the crowd as the witness came to the
conclusion of his revolting story. And so completely were all taken
by surprise by the startling, and as most of them believed truthful,
revelation, and so great was the sensation produced by the appalling
atrocities it disclosed, that the proceedings of the court were for
some moments brought to a dead stand. But soon the shrill, harsh voice
of Gaut’s lawyer was heard rising above the buzz of the excited crowd,
and bursting in a storm of denunciation and abuse on the witness, and
all those who had a hand in bringing him forward, to thrust in, against
all rule, such a story,--which, if true, had no more to do with the
prosecution now in progress than the first chapter of the Alcoran.
But it was not true. It was a monstrous fabrication. It represented
as a fact what never occurred in all Christendom. It was stamped
with falsehood on the face of it; and not only spoke for itself as
such, but was a virtual self-impeachment of the witness, whose whole
testimony the court should now throw to the winds. And so, for the next
half-hour, he went on, ranting and raving, till the court, interposing,
assured him that the witness’ last story would not be treated as
testimony in the case; when he became pacified, and took his seat.
The counsel on the other side, who, during his opponent’s explosive
display of rhetorical gas and brimstone, had been holding an earnest
consultation with Phillips (now also at hand with a disclosure which
had been reserved for the present moment), then calmly rose, and said
he had a statement to make, which he stood ready to substantiate, and
to which he respectfully asked the attention of the court, as a matter
that should be taken into the account in considering the prisoner’s
guilt in the present case, it being one of the many offences that
appeared to have marked his career of almost unvarying crime and
iniquity. He was well aware of the _general_ rule of evidence, which
excludes matters not directly connected with the point at issue; but
there _were_ cases in which that rule often had, and necessarily
ever must be, materially varied,--as in the _crim. con._ cases
reported in the books, where previous like acts were admitted, to
show the probability of the commission of the one charged, and also
in cases like the present, resting, as he admitted it thus far did,
on presumptive evidence. In this view, notwithstanding all that had
been said or intimated, he believed the concluding testimony of the
last witness proper to be considered in balancing the presumptions
of the prisoner’s guilt or innocence. And especially relevant did he
deem the statement, and the introduction of the evidence he had at
hand to substantiate it, which he had now risen to offer. But, even
were it otherwise, it would soon be seen that the step he was about to
take would be particularly suitable to be taken while the court and
the officers of justice were together, and the prisoner under their
control. With these preliminary remarks, he would now proceed with the
statement he had proposed.
“This man,” continued the attorney (whom we will now report in the
first person), “the man who stands here charged, and, in the minds of
nine out of ten of all present, I fearlessly affirm, _justly_ charged,
with a murder, to the deliberate atrocity of which scarce a parallel
can be found in the world’s black catalogue of crime,--this man, I say,
is a felon-refugee from British justice.
“Many years ago,--as some here present may know, as a matter of
history,--a secret and somewhat extended conspiracy to subvert the
government of Lower Canada was seasonably discovered and crushed at
Quebec, which was its principal seat, and which, according to the plan
of the conspirators, was to be the first object of assault and seizure.
This was to be effected by the contemporaneous rising of a strong force
within the city, headed by a bold adventurer, a bankrupt merchant from
Rhode Island, and of an army of raftsmen, collected from the rivers,
without, led on by a reckless and daring, half-Scotch, half-Indian
Canadian, who had acquired great influence over that restless and
ruffian class of men. The former had been in the province in the year
before, and, from witnessing the popular disaffection then rampant
from the enforcement of an odious act of their Parliament to compel
the building of roads, had, with the instigation of such desperate
fellows as the latter, his Canadian accomplice, conceived this plot,
and had now come on, with a small band of recruits, to carry it into
execution; when, as all was nearly ripe for the outbreak, the whole
plot was discovered. The poor Yankee leader was seized, tried for
high treason, condemned to death, and strung up by the neck from the
walls of Quebec.[5] But the more wary and fortunate Canadian leader,
though tenfold more guilty, escaped into the wilderness, this side of
the British line; lingered a year or two in this region, trapping and
robbing the Indians; then took to smuggling; engaged in the service
of the man whose murder we are now investigating, followed him to the
city, nearly ruined him there, and then dogged him to this settlement
to complete his destruction.”
“Who do you mean?” thundered Gaut Gurley.
“Ask your own conscience,” replied the attorney, fearlessly confronting
the prisoner.
“’Tis false as hell!” rejoined Gaut, with a countenance convulsed with
rage.
“No, you mistake,--it is as true as hell,” promptly retorted the
other; “or, rather, as true as there is one for such wretches as you.
Mr. Phillips,” he added, turning to the hunter, who stood a little in
the background, with his rifle poised on his left arm, with an air of
carelessness, but, as a close inspection would have shown, so grasped
by his right hand, held down out of sight, as to enable him to bring it
to an instant aim,--“Mr. Phillips, were you in the habit of going to
Quebec, fall and spring, to dispose of your peltries, about the time of
this plotted insurrection?”
“I was.”
“Did you ever have the Canada leader I have spoken of pointed out to
you, previous to the outbreak?”
“Often, on going down the Chaudiere river, often; why, I knew him by
sight as well as the devil knows his hogs!”
“Did you afterwards see and identify him in this region?”
“I did.”
“Is not, then, all I have stated true; and is not the prisoner, here,
the man?”
“All as true as the Gospel of St. Mark; and that is the man, the very
man; under the oath of God, I swear it!”
During this brief but terribly pointed dialogue, Gaut Gurley,--whose
handcuffs, on his complaint that they galled his wrists, had been
removed after he came into court,--sat watching Phillips with that same
singularly sinister expression which we have, on one or two previous
occasions, tried to describe him as exhibiting. It was a certain
indescribable, whitish, lurid light, flashing and quivering over his
countenance, that made the beholder involuntarily recoil. And, as the
last words were uttered, his hand was seen covertly stealing up under
the lapel of his coat; but it was instantly arrested and dropped, at
the sharp click of the cocking of the hunter’s rifle, which was also
seen stealing up to his shoulder.
“Nonsense!” half audibly said the sheriff, to something which, during
the bustle and sensation following these manifestations, the hunter
had been whispering in his ear; “nonsense! I searched him myself, and
_know_ there is nothing of the kind about him.”
“I am not so sure about that,” responded the hunter, edging along
through the crowd, with his eye still on the prisoner, and soon
disappearing out of the door.
This little judicial interlude in the remarks of the attorney being
over, he resumed:
“My statement having been thus corroborated, and, as I am most happy
to find, without any of the expected interruptions, it now only
remains for me to say, that this indefatigable Mr. Phillips, becoming
perfectly convinced that the prisoner was a man of whom it was a
patriotic duty to rid the settlement, has, within the last two months,
made a journey into Canada; obtained a written official request from
the governor-general, addressed to the governor of New Hampshire,
for the delivery of Gaut Gurley, at the time when, on notice, the
proper officers would be in waiting to receive him; that our governor
has responded by issuing his warrant; which,” he continued, drawing
out a document, “I now, in this presence, deliver to the sheriff,
to be served, but only served, in case we fail--as I do not at all
anticipate--to secure the commitment and final conviction of the
prisoner, on the flagitious offence now under investigation, and loudly
demanding expiation under our own violated laws, in preference to
delivering him up for the punishment of other and less crying felonies.”
The prisoner and his counsel, on this new and unexpected development,
held an earnest whispered consultation. The latter had supposed, till
almost the last moment, that his opponent was intending only to bring
in another piece of what he deemed wholly irrelevant testimony, in the
shape of another gone-by transaction; and he was preparing another
storm of wrath for the judicial outrage. But, when he found that the
statement was a preliminary to a different and more alarming movement,
and especially when he saw placed in the sheriff’s hands a warrant for
delivering up his client to the British, to be tried for a former
felony, from the punishment of which, he feared, from what he had just
heard, there would be no escape, he was sadly nonplussed, and knew
not which way to turn himself. And it was not until Gaut, who, though
thus suddenly brought into a dilemma which he was little expecting,
was yet at no loss to decide on his course,--that of making every
possible effort to escape the more immediate pending danger, and then
of trusting to chance for eluding the more remote one just brought to
view,--it was not till Gaut, with assurances of the last being but a
miserable, trumped-up affair, had pushed and goaded him up to action,
that the dumbfounded attorney recovered his old confidence. He then
straightened back in his seat, and, with the air of one who has meekly
borne some imposition, or breach of privilege, till it can be borne no
longer, turned gruffly to his opponent, and said:
“Well, sir, having dragged every thing into this case except what
legitimately belongs to it, I want to know if you are through, _now_?
We, on our side, have no need of introducing testimony to meet
any thing you have yet been able to show. Why, you have not even
established the first essential fact to be settled in prosecutions for
homicide. You have arraigned my client for killing a man, and yet have
shown nobody killed! No, we shall introduce no witnesses till the body
of the alleged murdered man is produced; for, till then, no court on
earth----But I am not making a speech, and will not anticipate. All I
intended was, to ask, as I do again, are you through with your evidence
_now_?”
The attorney for the prosecution then admitted--rather prematurely, as
it was soon seen--that he thought of nothing more which he wished to
introduce.
“Go on with your opening speech, then,” resumed the former.
“No,” said the other, “I waive my privilege of the opening and close,
and will only claim the closing speech.”
“O, very well, sir,” said Gaut’s lawyer, throwing a surprised and
suspicious look around, as if to see whether some trap was not involved
in this unexpected waiver of the usually claimed privilege. “Very well;
don’t blame you; shouldn’t think you could find honest materials even
for one speech.”
The hard-faced attorney, who was reputed one of the best of what are
sometimes termed _devil’s lawyers_, in all that part of the country,
then consequentially gathered up his minutes of the testimony, glanced
over them, and, clearing his throat, commenced his great final speech,
which was to annihilate his opponent, and quash the whole proceedings
of the prosecution.
But he had scarcely spoken ten words, before a tremendous shout, rising
somewhere in the direction of the bridge,--to which their attention
had been before called, when a part of it had been swept away during
the first hours of the night,--broke and reverberated into the room,
bringing him to an instant stand. Feeling that something extraordinary
had occurred, the startled court, parties and spectators, alike paused,
and eagerly listened for something further to explain the sudden
outbreak. But, for several minutes, all was still, or hushed down to
the low hum of mingling voices, and not a distinct, intelligible sound
reached their expectant senses. Soon, however, the noise of trampling
feet and the rush of crowds was heard, and perceived to be rapidly
approaching the door of the court-room. And the next moment the clear,
loud voice of the now evidently excited hunter was heard exultantly
ringing out the announcement:
“A witness, a new witness! A witness that saw the very deed!”
This sudden and exciting announcement of an occurrence which had been
hoped for, in some shape, on one side, and feared on the other, but,
at this late hour of the night, little expected by either, at once
threw all within the crowded court-room into bustle and commotion. Both
parties to the prosecution were consequently taken by surprise; and
both, though neither of them were yet apprised of the character of the
witness, were aroused and agitated by the significant announcement.
But, of all present, none seemed so much stirred as the obdurate
prisoner, who had, thus far in the examination, scarcely once wholly
lost his usual look of bold assurance, but who now was seen casting
rapid, uneasy, and evidently troubled glances towards the door;
doubtless expecting, each moment, to see the fear which had haunted
him from the first--that Claud Elwood would turn up alive, and appear
in court against him--realized in the person of the new witness. His
lawyer also, appeared to be seized with similar apprehensions; and, the
next moment, he was heard loudly demanding the attention of the court.
He objected, he _pointedly_ objected, he _protested_, in advance,
against the admission of further testimony. He had borne _every thing_
during the hearing, but could not bear _this_. The pleas were closed,
and the case concluded against the introduction of new evidence; and
that, too, by the express notice and agreement of the counsel for the
prosecution. And now to open it would be in glaring violation of all
rule, all law, and all precedent. In short, it would be an outrage too
gross to be tolerated anywhere but in a land of despotism. And, if the
court would not at once decide to exclude the threatened testimony, he
must be heard at length on the subject.
But the court declining so to decide, and intimating that they were
willing to hear an argument on the point, of any reasonable length,
he spread himself for the wordy onset. The sheriff,--who, in the mean
time, had started for the door to make an opening in the crowd for the
expected entrance,--seeing that a long speech was in prospect, now went
out, conducted the proffered witness, in waiting near by, to another
room in the house to remain there till called; and then returned, and,
in a low tone, made some communication to the court.
The pertinacious lawyer then went on with his heated protest, as it
might be called far more properly than an argument, to the length of
nearly an hour. The calm, manly, and cogent reply of his opponent
occupied far less time, but obtained far more favor with the sitting
magistrates; who, after a short consultation among themselves,
unanimously decided to hear the proposed evidence, and thereupon
ordered the sheriff to conduct the witness at once into court.
A breathless silence now ensued in the court-room, and every eye was
involuntarily turned towards the door. In a few minutes the sheriff,
closely followed by two females, made his appearance, and cleared his
way up to the stand that had been occupied by the witnesses. No names
had been announced, and both the ladies were veiled, so that their
faces could not be seen in the dusky apartment, lighted only by two
dim candles, made dimmer, seemingly, by the morning twilight, then
beginning to steal through the windows, and to produce that dismal and
almost sickening hue peculiar to the equal mingling of the natural
light of day with the artificial light of lamp or taper. And it was
not consequently known, except to one or two individuals, who they
were; but enough was seen, in the enlarged form and sober tread of the
one, and in the rounded, trim figure and elastic step of the other, to
show the former to be a middle-aged matron, and the latter a youthful
maiden. Each was garbed in rich black silk, to which were added, in the
one case, some of the usual emblems of mourning, and in the other, a
few simple, tastily contrasted, light trimmings.
“What are these ladies’ names? or rather, first, I will ask, which of
them is the witness?” said the leading magistrate.
“I am, I suppose,” said the maiden, in tones as soft and tremulous as
the lightly-touched chord of some musical instrument, as she threw
back her veil, and disclosed a beauty of features and sweetness of
countenance that at once raised a buzz of admiration through the room.
“Your name, young lady?”
“Fluella, sir; and this lady at my side is Mrs. Mark Elwood, who comes
only as my friend.”
“You understand the usages of courts, I conclude; and, if so, will
now receive the oath, and go on to tell what you know relative to
the crime for which, you have doubtless heard, the prisoner here is
arraigned.”
At once raising her hand, she was sworn, and proceeded directly to
state that part of the transaction she had witnessed on the lake, which
the hunter, in the conversation she found means to have with him while
waiting to be taken into court, had advised her was all that would be
important as evidence in the case.
Gaut Gurley, the alarmed prisoner, who at first had appeared greatly
relieved on finding that the announced witness was not the reänimated
young Elwood, as he had feared, now seemed utterly at fault to
conjecture what either of these women could know of his crime. But the
moment the maiden, whom he had seen the previous year, and regarded
with jealous dislike, as the possible rival of his daughter, revealed
herself to his view, his looks grew dark and suspicious; and when
she commenced by mentioning, as she did at the outset, that she was
on a boat excursion along the western shore of the Maguntic, on the
well-remembered day when he consummated his long cherished atrocity,
he seemed to comprehend the drift of what was coming, and his eyes
fastened on her with the livid glare of a tiger; while those demoniac
flashes, before noted as the usual precursor of hellish intent with
him, began to burn up and play over his contracting countenance.
But these suspicious indications had escaped the notice of all,--even
of the watchful hunter, whose looks, with those of the rest, were for
the moment hanging, with intense interest, on the speaking lips of the
fair witness. And she proceeded uninterrupted, till, having described
the position in the thicket on shore, in which she was standing, as
Mark Elwood, followed by Gaut Gurley, both of whom she recognized, came
along, she, nerving herself for the task, raised her voice and said:
“I distinctly saw Mr. Elwood fall, convulsed in death,--heard the fatal
shot, and instantly traced it to Gaut, before he had taken his smoking
rifle from his shoulder,--this same man who now----”
When, as she was uttering the last words, and turning to the prisoner,
she stopped short, recoiled, and uttered a loud shriek of terror. And,
the next instant, the deafening report of a pistol burst from the
corner where the prisoner was sitting, filling the room with smoke, and
bringing every man to his feet, in the amazement and alarm that seized
all at the sudden outbreak.
There was a dead pause for a moment; and then was heard the sudden rush
of men, the sharp, brief struggle, and the heavy fall of the grappled
prisoner, as he was borne overpowered to the floor.
“Thank God!” exclaimed the hunter, the first to reach the bewildered
maiden, and ascertain what had befell from this fiendish attempt to
take her life simply because she was instrumental in bringing a wretch
to justice,--“thank God, she is unhurt! The bullet has only cut the
dress on her side, and passed into the wall beyond.”
“Order in court!” sternly cried the head magistrate. “It is enough! Mr.
Phillips, conduct these ladies to some more suitable apartment. We wish
for no more proof. The prisoner’s guilt is already piled mountain-high.
We commit him to your hands, Mr. Sheriff. Within one hour, let him be
on his way to Lancaster jail, there to await his final trial and doom,
for one of the foulest murders that ever blasted the character of human
kind!”
We will not attempt to describe, in detail, the lively and bustling
scene, which, for the next hour or two, now ensued in and around the
tavern, that had lately been the unaccustomed theatre of so many new
and startling developments. The running to and fro of the excited and
jubilant throng of men, women, and children, who, in their anxiety to
witness and know the result of the trial, had passed the whole night
in the place,--the partaking of the hastily snatched breakfast, in
the tavern, by some, or on logs or bunches of shingles in the yard,
by others, from provisions brought along with them from home,--the
hurried harnessing of horses and running out of wagons, preparatory to
the departure of those here with the usual vehicles of travel,--the
resounding blows and lumbering sounds of the score of lusty men who had
volunteered to replace and repair the bridge from the old materials
luckily thrown on the bank a short distance down the stream, so as to
permit the departing teams, going in that direction, to pass safely
over,--and, lastly, the bringing out, the placing on his bed of straw
in the bottom of a wagon, and the moving off of the caged lion, with
his cavalcade of guards before and behind,--the fiercely exultant
hurrahing of the execrating crowd, as he disappeared up the road
to the west, together with the crowning, extra loud and triumphant
_kuk-kuk-ke-o-ho!_ of Comical Codman, who had mounted a tall stump
for the purpose, and made the preliminary declaration that, if he was
_ever_ to have another crow, it should be now, on seeing the Devil’s
unaccountable and first cousin, to say the least, in relationship, so
handsomely cornered, and, at last so securely put in limbo,--these,
all these combined to form a scene as stirring to the view, as it was
replete with moral picturesque to the mind. But we must content ourself
with this meagre outline; another and a different, quickly succeeding
scene in the shifting panorama, now demands our attention.
Among the crowd who had arranged themselves in rows, to witness the
departure of the court officials and the prisoner, were the two now
inseparable friends, Mrs. Elwood and Fluella; who, on turning from the
spectacle, had strolled, arm-in-arm, to a green, shaded grass-plot at
the farther end of the tavern building, and were now, with pensive but
interested looks, bending over the garden fence, and inspecting a small
parterre of budding flowers, which female taste had, even in a place
so lately redeemed from the forest as this, found means to introduce.
They were lingering here, while others were departing, for the arrival
of expected friends, though evidently not conscious of their very near
approach. But even then, as they stood listlessly gazing over upon the
mute objects of their interest, those friends were coming across the
bridge, in the singularly contrasted forms of an aged man, walking
without any staff, and with a firm elastic tread, and quite a youngerly
one, walking _with_ a cane, and with careful steps and a restrained
gait, betokening some lingering soreness of body or limb. On reaching
the nearest part of the tavern-yard, the young man gazed eagerly round
among the still numerous crowd, when, his eye falling on those of whom
he seemed to be in search, he turned to his companion and said:
“There they are, Chief. I will go forward and take them by surprise.”
The next moment he was standing closely behind the unconscious objects
of his attention; when, with a smiling lip but silent tongue, he gently
laid a hand on a shoulder of each.
“Claud!” burst from the lips of the surprised and reddening maiden, the
first to turn to the welcome intruder.
“Claud! Claud!” exclaimed the agitated matron, as she also turned, in
grateful surprise, to greet, for the first time since his return, her
heart’s idol. “My son! my son!” she continued, with gathering emotion,
“are you indeed restored alive to my arms, and, but for you, my now
doubly desolate home? Thank Heaven! O thank Heaven! for the happy,
happy restoration!”
“That is right, dear mother!” at length responded the visibly touched
young man, gently disengaging himself from the long maternal embrace;
“that is all right. But,” he added, turning to the maiden, whose
sympathetic tears were coursing down her fair cheeks, “if you would
thank any _earthly_ being for the preservation of my life, it should be
this good and lovely girl at your side.”
“I know it,” said the mother, after a thoughtful pause, “I know it;
and, Claud, I would that she were _indeed_ my daughter.”
There was an embarrassing pause. But the embarrassment was not
perceived and felt by these two young persons alone. Another, unknown
to them, had silently witnessed the whole interview from an open,
loosely-curtained window of the chamber above; and perceived, and
felt, and appreciated, all that had transpired, in word and look, no
less keenly than the young couple, whose beating hearts, only, were
measuring the moments of their silent perplexity. That other was Gaut
Gurley’s lovely and luckless but strong-hearted daughter. Having
instinctively read her father’s guilt, she had come to his trial with a
sinking heart; shut herself up alone in this small chamber; so arranged
the screening curtains that she could sit by the open window unseen,
and kept her post through that long night of her silent woe, hearing
all that was said by the crowd below, and, through their comments,
becoming apprised of all that was going on in the court-room, in the
order it transpired. She had known of Fluella’s arrival,--her perilous
passage over the river,--of the report she then made to the hunter of
her discoveries,--of her bringing back the wounded Claud in safety,--of
the dastardly attempt of the prisoner to take that heroic girl’s
life,--of his sentence, and, finally, of his departure for prison,
amidst the execrations of a justly indignant people. She had known
all this, and felt it, to the inmost core of her rent heart, with the
twofold anguish of a broken-hearted lover and a fate-smitten daughter.
She had wrestled terribly with her own heart, and she had conquered.
She had determined her destiny; and now, on witnessing the last part
of the tender scene enacting under her window, she suddenly formed the
high resolve of crowning her self-immolation by a public sacrifice.
Accordingly she hastily rose from her seat, and, without thought or
care of toilet, descended rapidly to the yard, and, with hurrying step
and looks indicative of settled purpose, moved directly towards the
deeply surprised actors in the little scene, of which she had thus been
made the involuntary witness.
“No ceremony!” she said, in tones of unnatural calmness, with a
forbidding gesture to Claud, who, while Fluella was instinctively
shrinking to the side of the more unmoved but still evidently
disturbed Mrs. Elwood, had advanced a step for a respectful greeting.
“No ceremony--it is needless; and no fears, fair girl, and anxious
mother--they are without cause. I come not to mar, but to make,
happiness. Claud Elwood, my heart once opened and turned to you, as
the sunflower to its god; and our paths of love met, and, for a while,
ran on pleasantly together as one. But, even then, something whispered
me they would soon again diverge, and lead off to separate destinies.
The boded divergence, as I feared, began with the fatal family feud of
last winter, and has now resulted, as I still more feared, in plunging
us, respectively, in degradation and sorrow, and also in placing our
destinies as wide as the poles asunder. Claud, Claud Elwood,--can you
love this beautiful girl at your side? You speak not. I _know_ that you
can. I relinquish, then, whatever I may have possessed of your heart,
to her, if _she_ wills. And why should she not? Why reject one whose
life she would peril her own to save? She will not. Be you two, then,
one; and may all the earthly happiness _I_ once dreamed of, with none
of the bitter alloy it has been my lot to experience, be henceforth
yours. You will know me no more. With to-morrow’s sun, I travel to
a distant cloister, where the world, with its tantalizing loves and
dazzling ambitions, will be nothing more to me forever. Farewell,
Claud! farewell, gentle, heroic maiden! farewell, afflicted, happy
mother! If the prayers of Avis Gurley have virtue, their first incense
shall rise for the healing of all the heart-wounds one of her family
has inflicted.”
As the fair speaker ceased, and turned away from this doubtless
unspeakably painful performance of what she deemed her last worldly
duty, as well as an acceptable opening act in the life of penance
to which she had resolved now to devote herself, an audible murmur
of applause ran through the throng, who, in spite of their wish not
to appear intrusive, had paused at a little distance, to listen to
and witness the unexpected and singular scene. Among the voices which
had been thus more distinctly raised was that of a stranger, who,
having arrived a few minutes before, given his horse to the waiter,
shook hands with the hunter and the chief, to whom he appeared well
known, had joined the crowd to see what was going on, and who had been
particularly emphatic in the open expression of his admiration. The
remembered tones of his voice, though attracting no attention from
others, instantly reached the quick ears of one of the more silent
actors of the little scene we have been describing. She threw a quick,
eager glance around her; and, having soon singled out from the now
scattering crowd, the person of whom her sparkling eye seemed in
search, she flew forward towards him, with the joyful cry:
“My father! my white father! I am glad, O, so glad you have come!” and
she eagerly grasped his outstretched hand, shook it, kissed him, and,
being now relieved from the embarrassment she had keenly felt in the
position in which she had just been so unexpectedly placed, appeared to
be all joy and animation.
“Come, come, Fluella, don’t shake my arm off, nor bother me now with
questions,” laughingly said the gentleman, thus affectionately beset,
as he pulled the joyous girl along towards the spot where the wondering
Mrs. Elwood and her son were standing. “You must not quite monopolize
me; here are others who may wish to see me.”
“Arthur!” exclaimed Mrs. Elwood, with a look of astonishment, after
once or twice parting her lips to speak, and then pausing, as if in
doubt, as the other was coming up with his face too much averted to be
fairly seen by her; “it is--it is--Arthur Elwood!”
“Yes, you are right, sister Alice,” responded the hard-visaged little
man thus addressed, extending his hand. “It is the same odd stick of an
old bachelor that he always was. But who is this?” he added, with an
inclination of the head towards Claud. “Your son, I suppose?”
The formal introduction to each other of the (till then) personally
unacquainted uncle and nephew; the full developing to the astonished
mother and son of the fact, already inferred from what they had just
witnessed, that this, their eccentric kinsman, was no other than the
foster-father of Fluella,--that he was the owner of large tracts of the
most valuable wild lands around these lakes, the oversight of which,
together with the unexpected tutelary care of the Elwood family since
their removal to the settlement, he had intrusted to the prudent and
faithful Phillips,--and, finally, the melancholy mingling of sorrows
for the untimely death of the fated brother, husband, and father of
these deeply-sympathizing co-relatives, now, like chasing lights and
shadows from alternating sunshine and cloud on a landscape, followed
in rapid succession, in unfolding to the mournfully happy circle their
mutual positions and bonds of common interest.
“Evil has its antidotes,” remarked Arthur Elwood, as the conversation
on these subjects began to flag and give room for other thoughts
growing out of the association; “evil has its antidotes, and sorrow
its alleviating joys. And especially shall we realize this, if the
suggestions of that self-sacrificing girl, who has just addressed you
so feelingly, be now followed. What say you, Claud?”
“They will be,” promptly responded the young man, at once comprehending
all which the significant question involved; “they will be, on my part,
uncle Arthur, joyfully,--proudly.”
“And you, Fluella?” persisted the saucy querist, turning to the
blushing girl.
“He has not asked me yet,” she quickly replied, with a look in which
maiden pride, archness, and unuttered happiness, were charmingly
blended. “If he should, and _you_ should command me”----
“Command? _command!_ Now, that is a good one, Fluella,” returned the
laughing foster-father. “Well, well, a woman will be a woman still,
any way you can fix it. All right, however, I presume. But, chief,”
he added, turning to the natural father, who stood with the hunter a
little in the background, “what has been going on here cannot have
escaped your keen observation; and you ought to have a voice in this
matter. “What do _you_ say?”
“The chief,” replied the other, with his usual dignity, “the chief has
had one staff, one light of his lodge; he will now have two. Wenongonet
is content.”
“It is settled, then,” rejoined the former, whose usually passionless
countenance was now beaming with pleasure; “all right, all round. Now,
sister Alice, let us all adjourn to your house, where you and Fluella,
from some of those splendid lake trout which I and Mr. Phillips, who,
as well as the chief, must be of the party, will first go out and catch
for you,--you and Fluella, I say, must cook us up a nice family dinner,
over which we will discuss matters at large, and have a good time
generally.”
In a few minutes more the happy group were on their way to the Elwood
cottage.
The principal interest of our story is at an end; and with it, also,
the story itself should speedily terminate. A few words more, however,
seem necessary, to anticipate the inquiries which will very naturally
arise in the mind of the reader, respecting what might be expected
soon to follow the _eclaircissement_ of the few last pages; and,
accordingly, as far as can be done without marring the unity of time,
we will proceed, briefly, to answer the inquiries thus arising.
The body of the fated Mark Elwood, perforated through the breast by the
bullet of his cold-blooded murderer, having broken from the sinking
weights attached to it, and risen to the surface of the lake, was
found in about a fortnight, brought home, and buried on his farm.
Not far from the same time the faithful hunter received, from the hands
of a gentleman passing through the settlement, a deed of gift of three
hundred acres of valuable timber-land, adjoining his own little patch
of a lot, all duly drawn, signed, and executed by Arthur Elwood; who,
after a pleasant sojourn of a week at the Elwood cottage, apprising
its inmates of what he had in store for them, in the line of property,
had departed for his home, a happier man than he had been, since, for
secret griefs, he had dissolved partnership with his brother Mark, and
left the little interior village where the pair first made their humble
beginning in life.
Codman, the trapper, continued to trap it still, and, as all the
settlers within a circuit of many miles around them were often
unmistakably made aware, to crow as usual on all extra occasions.
Tomah, the college-learned Indian, immediately left, with the escort
of the prisoner, and, kept away by the force of some associations
connected with the settlement as disagreeable to him as they were
conjecturable to others, was never again seen in the settlement;
against which, on leaving, he seemed to have kicked off the dust of his
feet behind him.
Carvil, the cultivated amateur hunter, had also immediately departed,
with the court party, on his way to his pleasant home in the Green
Mountains; not wholly to relinquish, however, his yearly sojourns in
the forests, to regain health impaired for the want of a more full
supply of his coveted, life-giving oxygen.
And, lastly, Gaut Gurley, whose infernal scheming and revolting
atrocities have been so inseparably interwoven with the main incidents
of our story, broke jail, on the night preceding the day set for his
final trial, by digging through the thick stone wall of his prison,
with implements evidently furnished from without, leaving bloody traces
of his difficult egress through the hardly sufficient hole he had
effected for the purpose; and, though instant search was everywhere
made for him, he was not, to the sad disappointment of the thousands
intending to be in at the hanging, anywhere to be found or heard of in
the country. And the mystery of his retreat, and the still unexplained
mystery of his strange and ruinous influence over the man whom he
at last so flagitiously murdered, were not cleared up until years
afterwards.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] See Christie’s History of Lower Canada.
SEQUEL.
It was a terrible storm. The wind, with all the awful accompaniments
of rain, hail, rattling thunders, and fiercely glaring lightnings,
had burst down upon the liquid plains of the startled deep, in all
the fury of a tropical tornado. The black heavens were in terrific
commotion above; and the smitten and resilient waters, as if to escape
the impending wrath of the aroused sister elements, were fleeing in
galloping mountains athwart the surface of the boiling ocean beneath.
Could aught human, or aught of human construction, be here, now, and
survive? It would seem an utter impossibility; and yet it was so.
Amidst all this deafening din of battling elements, that were filling
the heavens with their uproar and lashing the darkened ocean into wild
fury and commotion, a staunch-built West India merchant-ship was seen,
now madly plunging into the troughs of the sea, and now quivering like
a feather on the towering waves, or scudding through the flying spray
with fearful velocity before the howling blast.
On her flush deck, and lashed to the helm, with the breaking waves
dashing around his feet, and the water dripping from the close cap
and tightly-buttoned pea-jacket in which he was garbed, stood her
gallant master, in the performance of a duty which he, true to
his responsibility, would intrust to no other, in such an hour as
this,--that of guiding his storm-tossed bark among the frightful
billows that were threatening every instant, to engulf her. Thus
swiftly onward drove the seemingly devoted ship, strained, shivering,
and groaning beneath the terrible power of the gale, like an
over-ridden steed, as she dashed, yet unharmed, through the mist and
spray and constantly-breaking white caps of the wildly-rolling deep;
thus onward sped she, for the full space of two hours, when the wind
gradually lulled, and with it the deafening uproar subsided. Presently
a young, well-dressed gentleman made his appearance on deck, amidships,
and, having noted a while the now evident subsidence of the tempest,
slowly and carefully, from one grasped rope to another, made his way to
the side of the captain, at the wheel.
“A frightful blow, Mr. Elwood,” said the latter; “for the twenty years
I have been a seaman, I have never seen the like.”
“It certainly has exceeded all my conceptions of a sea-storm,” said
the other. “But do you know where we are, and where driving at this
tremendous speed?”
“Yes, I think I do, both. When we were struck by the gale, which I saw
was going to be a terrible norther, and saw it, too, very luckily,
at a distance that enabled me to become well prepared for it, look
at my reckoning, and make all my calculations,--when we were struck,
we were three hundred and fifty miles out of Havana, north’ard, and
about forty from the American coast. I at once put the ship before the
wind, and set her course southeast, which, being perfectly familiar
with these seas, I knew would give her a safe run, and, in about sixty
miles, carry her by the southern point of the Little Bahama Bank,
where, rounding this great breakwater against northers, we should be
in a comparatively smooth sea, that would admit of either laying to or
anchoring. It is now over two hours since we started on this fearful
race, which has kept my heart in my mouth the whole time; and I am
expecting, every minute, to get sight of that rocky headland.”
“But that,” rejoined Elwood (for the gentleman was no other than Claud
Elwood, as the reader has doubtless already inferred), “that will
bring us, according to the late rumor, into one of the principal haunts
of the pirates, will it not?”
“Yes, partly, perhaps,” replied the captain; “but I hear that Commodore
Porter has arrived, with the American squadron, in these seas, to break
up these pests, and I presume _has_ done it, or frightened them away,
so that we sha’n’t be molested. At any rate, I saw no safer course to
outlive such a tempest. You are the owner of ship and cargo, to be
sure; but you put on me the responsibility of her safety.”
“Certainly,” rejoined the other, “for my guidance would be a poor one;
and, instead of any disposition to criticise your course, Captain
Golding, I feel but too grateful, with the life of a beloved wife at
stake, to say nothing of my own, and so much property, that your skill
has enabled us to outride the storm--now nearly over, I think--so
unexpectedly well. But what is that, a little to the left of the ship’s
course, in the distance ahead?”
“Ah, that is it!” cheerily exclaimed the captain, casting an eager
look in the indicated direction. “Why, how like a race-horse the ship
must be driving ahead! I looked not ten minutes ago, and nothing was
to be seen; and now there is the headland, in full view, but two or
three leagues distant! And stay,--what is that dark object around and a
little beyond the point? A ship? Yes, it grows distinct now,--a large,
black ship. That, sir, is an American frigate. Hurra to you, Elwood! We
will now soon be safe, and in safe company.”
It was about sunset. The merchantman, having passed the protecting
promontory, and swept around the tall ship of war, had gained an
offing, about a half mile beyond, under the lee of a thickly-wooded,
long, narrow island; and was now lying snugly at anchor, riding out the
heavy ground-swell occasioned by the abated storm; while all on board,
unsuspicious of molestation, were making preparations to turn in for
the night.
“A sail to the leeward!” shouted a sailor, just sent aloft to make some
alteration in the rigging.
The word was passed below; and the captain, mates, and Elwood, were
instantly on deck, and on the lookout. They at once descried a large
black schooner, creeping out from behind the farther end of the island
against which they were anchored, about a mile distant, and tacking
and beating her way towards them. She carried no colors by which
her character could be determined; but the very absence of all such
insignia, together with the sinister appearance of her long, low sides,
which exhibited the aspect of masked port-holes, and also the peculiar
stir of her evidently large and strange-looking crew, at once marked
her as an object of suspicion.
“Elwood, your fears were prophetic,” said the captain, lowering his
glass from a long, intent observation. “That craft is a pirate, with
scarce a shadow of doubt. But don’t the mad creature see the frigate,
and the frigate her?”
With this, they all turned towards the ship of war; but she was no
longer visible. A narrow vein of land fog, put in motion by some local
current in shore, had been wafted out on to the water, and completely
enshrouded her from their view.
“I see it all,” exclaimed Elwood. “That pirate has been lying, all the
afternoon, concealed behind this island; and his spies, sent into the
woods on the island, and to this end of it, probably, saw both our ship
and the frigate take their positions, and this intervening fog coming
on, and reported all to their master; who at once conceived the bold
design which he has now started out to execute,--that of snatching us,
as its prize, from under the very guns of the frigate!”
A brief, earnest consultation was then held; when, knowing the
uselessness of trying to signalize the frigate, they first thought
to weigh anchor and try to escape to her protection; but a little
reflection told them the enemy would be down upon them before this
could be effected, and they would be taken, unprepared for defence.
The only other alternative left them was, therefore, quickly adopted;
and, in pursuance, the second mate and two seamen were lowered in the
life-boat, with orders to keep the ship between themselves and the
schooner till they got into the screening fog, and then make their
way, with all speed, to the frigate, to invoke her aid and protection;
while all the rest should arm themselves with the muskets, swords, and
pistols on board, and, if possible, hold the enemy at bay till succor
arrived. And scarcely had these hasty preparations been made, before
the piratical schooner, which had made a wide tack outward to catch the
wind, came swiftly sweeping round to their side, like a towering falcon
on his prey. But, by some miscalculation of her helmsman, she went
twenty yards wide of them--not, however, without betraying the full
extent of her bloody purposes; for as, under the impulse of a speed
she found herself unable instantly to check, she swept by on the long,
rolling billows, a score or two of desperate ruffians, headed by their
burly and still more fierce-looking captain, stood on her deck, armed
to the teeth, and holding their hooks and hawsers, ready to grapple
and board their intended prey. But, still forbearing to unmask their
batteries or fire a gun, lest they should thus bring down the frigate
upon them, her grim and silent crew sprang to their posts, to tack ship
and come round again, with the narrowest sweep, to repair their former
mischance. And, with surprising quickness, their well-worked craft was
again, and this time with no uncertain guidance, shooting alongside of
the devoted merchantman. Still the crew of the latter quailed not; but,
well knowing there was no longer any hope of escaping a struggle in
which death or victory were the only alternatives, stood, with knitted
brows and fire-arms cocked and levelled, silently awaiting the onset.
It came. With the shock of the partial collision as the assailing craft
raked along the sides of their ship, and the sudden jerk as she was
brought up by the quickly-thrown grapples, the pirate captain, with a
fierce shout of defiance, cleared, at a single bound, the intervening
rails, and landed, with brandished sword, upon their fore-deck. A dozen
more, with a wild yell, were in the act of following, when they were
met by a full volley from the guns of the defenders, poured into their
very faces. There was a pause,--a lurch,--a crack of breaking fixtures;
and the next moment the schooner, torn away from her fastenings by the
force of a monstrous upheaving wave, and thrown around at right angles
to the unharmed prey so nearly within her clutches, was seen rolling
and reeling on the top of a billow, fifty yards distant. At that
instant, twenty jets of blinding flame fiercely burst from the edge of
the fog-cloud, almost within pistol-shot to the windward, and, with the
startling flash, rent sky and ocean leaped as with the concussion of a
closely-breaking volley of linked thunder-peals. There was another and
still more awful pause; when, through the cloud of sulphurous smoke
that was rolling over them, the astounded defenders heard the gurgling
rush, as of waters breaking into newly opened chasms, in the direction
of the enemy; and they comprehended all. The frigate, unperceived by
the eager pirates, had dropped down, rounded to, and sent a whole
broadside directly into the uprolled hull of the devoted craft, which
had been reduced to a sinking wreck by that one tremendously heavy
discharge of terrible missiles. Within two minutes the lifting smoke
disclosed her, reeling and lurching for the final plunge. Within one
more, she rose upright, like some mortally-smitten giant, quivered an
instant, and, with all her grim and hideously-screeching crew, went
down, stern foremost, amid the parting waves of the boiling deep.
These startling scenes had transpired so rapidly that the amazed crew
of the merchantman had taken no thought of the pirate captain whom
they had seen leaping on their deck; but they now turned to look for
him, and, whether dead or alive, to take charge of him, to crown the
fortunate result of this fearful encounter. There he stood at bay,
with back turned to the foremast, facing his virtual captors, with a
brandished sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, as if daring
them to approach or fire on him. But they were spared the necessity of
attempting either. A boat’s crew of armed men from the frigate were
already mounting the deck, to claim whoever of the pirates they found
alive, as their trophies. The formidable desperado was pointed out to
them; when, firing a volley over his head, to confuse without killing
him, they rushed forward in the smoke, disarmed, bound, and dragged him
along, to pass him down to their boat. As he was being urged across the
deck, his eyes met those of Elwood. The recognition was mutual. It was
Gaut Gurley!
It was morning, and the bright sun was looking down upon an ocean as
calm and peaceful as if its passive bosom had never been disturbed by
the ensanguined tumults of warring men, or the commotions of battling
elements.
A youthful couple were standing by the rail, on the deck of the still
anchored merchantman, and glancing up admiringly at the towering masts
of the ship-of-war, which had also anchored for the night on the very
spot from which she had dealt such destruction to the pirates, whose
awful fate and the connected circumstances had been with them the topic
of conversation.
“This has been such a fearful ordeal to you, dear Fluella,” said the
young man, smilingly, “that I shall probably never be able again to
induce you to leave home to cross the ocean, either for health or
pleasure, shall I?”
“For pleasure, no, my dear husband,” affectionately responded the
other; “no, with my happy New England home, never, for pleasure, Claud.”
“But this was for _health_,” rejoined Elwood. “I have never told you
how much I was concerned about you last summer, or that your physician
warned me, as cold weather approached, he could not answer for your
life through another winter at the North. It was this only that led me
to urge you to accompany me to Cuba, to remain there till I came back
for you in the spring, as I have now done. And, to say nothing of the
gains which my two trips will add to the estate of which I am heir in
expectation,--or rather, as my good uncle will have it, in possession
with him,--to say nothing of this, I shall always be thankful for your
coming, for it has so evidently restored you, I had almost said, to
more of health and beauty than I have seen you exhibiting for the whole
two and a half happy years of our married life.”
“Thank you, Claud, for the beautiful part of it,” said the happy wife,
snapping her handkerchief in his face, with an air of mock resentment;
“but I am thinking of home. When shall we reach there?”
“Well, let us calculate,” replied the husband, beginning to catch the
affectionate animation of the other: “this is the 22d of April; and I
think I can promise you the enjoyment of a May-day in New England.”
“I hold you to that, sir,” playfully rejoined the wife, “for I wish
to be preparing for our summer residence at your cottage on my native
lakes. My illness deprived me of that pleasure last summer, you know,
husband mine.”
“Yes,” said he, with kindling enthusiasm, “we will go, Fluella. I want
to see the good old chief; I want to enjoy the visit I have promised me
from my friend Carvil; I want to hear Phillips discourse on woodcraft,
and Chanticleer Codman wake the echoes of the lakes by his marvellous
crowing. Yes, yes, we will go, and make uncle and mother go with us,
this time.”
“Uncle and mother!” cried Fluella, laughingly; “how odd that is getting
to sound. Suppose I call your mother aunt? Have they not now been
married long enough to be both entitled to the more endearing names of
father and mother? and are they not happy enough and good enough to
merit the dearest names?”
“Yes,” answered Elwood, “I will correct the habit, if you really wish
it. Yes, yes; the once-styled crusty old bachelor, Arthur Elwood, and
my mother, are indeed a happy couple. Did you ever know a happier?”
“Yes, one,” replied the hesitating, blushing wife, drawing down her
husband’s head, and slyly imprinting a kiss on his cheek.
The conversation between the happy pair was here interrupted by the
appearance of a boat putting off from the frigate, under the charge of
a midshipman; who, having come on board and inquired out Elwood, now
approached and presented him a letter, saying, as he departed, it was
from the pirate prisoner, and would doubtless require no answer.
The greatly surprised young man tore open the letter, and, in company
with his wife, read, with mingled emotions of pain and indignation, the
following singular but characteristic compound of malicious vaunt and
shameless confession:
“TO CLAUD ELWOOD:--My career is ended, at last. Well, I have the
satisfaction of knowing that I have been nobody’s fool nor nobody’s
tool. Early perceiving that nine out of ten were only the stupid
instruments of the tenth man, the world over, I resolved to go into
the system, and did, and improved on it so as to make _nineteen_ out
of _twenty_ tools to _me_,--that is all. I have no great fault to find
with men generally, though I always despised the whole herd; for I
knew that, if they used me well, it was only because they dared not do
otherwise. I don’t write this, however, to preach upon that, but to
let you know another thing, to chew upon.
“You call me a murderer; and I want to tell you that _you_ are the
_son_ of a murderer, and therefore stand on a par with my family, even
at that. Your father, when we used to operate together in smuggling,
being once hard chased, on an out-of-the-way road, by one of the
custom-house crew, knocked him down with a club, and finished with the
blow, to save a thousand dollars’ worth of silk. But I sacredly kept
his secret; yes, even to this day, besides making one good fortune
for him, and being on the point of making him another. And yet he
betrayed and turned against me. Yes, in that affair about the missing
peltries, he betrayed me, out and out, and spoilt every thing. That
was his unpardonable sin, with me. I resolved he should die for it;
and he _did_. I didn’t want to kill you, but couldn’t suffer you to
become a witness. No, I never had any thing against you, except for
allowing matters to take the turn that drove my daughter to anticipate
you in breaking off the match. But it was just as well, as it turned
out. Avis, in the position of _lady abbess_ of a convent in one of
your eastern cities, which it is settled she will have, will stand
quite as high, I guess, as in the position of lady Elwood.
“I have done, now, except to ask one favor,--the only one I will ever
ask of _any_ man,--and that is, that you won’t publish my name, and
couple it with the unlucky miss-go of last night; so that my wife and
daughter, who know I am in this region, but not my business, may never
learn that the captain of the _Black Rover_ and I are one. As my brave
boys are all gone down, and as _I_ shall have no trial to bring it
out, it rests with you to say whether it is ever to be known or not;
for, as I have said, I have no notion of being either tried or hung,
any more than I had at the North.
GAUT.”
On finishing this singular and remorseless missive, with its strange,
painful, but as he feared too true disclosure of the secret of that
fatal influence which had proved the ruin and final destruction of his
father, Claud Elwood was too much troubled and overcome to utter a word
of comment; and, with his pained and shuddering wife, he stood mute and
thoughtful, until aroused by the stir on board, in preparations for
weighing anchor, and the cheering announcement of the captain that a
favoring breeze was springing up, and that within twenty minutes they
would be, under the fairest of auspices, on their rejoicing way to
their own beloved New England.
But the cheering thought was not to be enjoyed without the drawback of
being compelled to witness one more and a concluding horror.
As Elwood and his beautiful companion were on the point of retiring
from deck, their attention was suddenly arrested by a light, crashing
sound, high up the tall side of the frigate. They looked, and caught
sight of broken pieces of board or panelling flying out, as if beat or
kicked from what appeared to have been a closed port-hole. Presently
the body of a man, whom they at once recognized, was protruded through
the ample aperture he had evidently thus effected, till he brought
himself to a balance on the outer edge. Then came the sharp cry from
some one of the frigate’s officers:
“Look out, there, for the pirate prisoner!”
There was at once a lively stir on board, but too late. The next
moment the heavily-manacled object of the alarm descended, like a
swiftly-falling weight, to the water; and, with a dull plunge, the
recoiling waves rolled back, forever closing over the _traitor_, the
_robber_, the _murderer_, and the _pirate_, GAUT GURLEY!
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Transcriber’s Notes
This book had a very large number of obvious printer’s errors, which
have been silently corrected.
Page 165: “as I from to time” changed to “as I from time to time” and “I
will down” changed to “I will be down”
Page 184: “put in under my foot” changed to “put it under my foot”
Page 201: The missing letter in “the eeling month;” was filled in via
consultation with another version and has been changed to “the peeling
month”
Page 321: The word before logs in this section, “tangled trees,
()-logs,” was unclear in the original text but was verified in another
edition to be mill-logs.