THE
ISLAND PIRATE.
A TALE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID,
AUTHOR OF "BLUE DICK," "SCALP HUNTERS," ETC.
NEW YORK:
BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
BEADLE AND ADAMS,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
(P. N. No. 10.)
THE
ISLAND PIRATE.
CHAPTER I.
A PAYING PRISON.
Many long years have elapsed since I first set foot in the valley
of the Mississippi. I had strayed thither a young and enthusiastic
traveler, with scarce any other aim than adventure.
I soon discovered that I had got into the very ground where such a
taste could be gratified. Amid scenes of softness or sublimity, or
tranquil solitude or stirring life--amid varied types of nationality,
and strange contrasts of character--scarce a day passed without its
incident, nor week wanting in some episode worthy of remembrance. Many
of them have at least proved worthy of mine; and I now look back upon
them with that romantic interest by which the past often reflects
itself in the mirror of memory.
That I am about to record is of a mixed character--a drama in which
there are scenes of pain as well as pleasure--both of real occurrence.
Whether interesting or no, they may be deemed improbable; though not by
those who have studied the social characteristics of the Mississippi
valley at the period to which they refer--before the "Far West" had
commenced receding from the great river, and its settlements had
refused to give shelter to those outcasts of society, who own no law
but that of the lex talionis, and no lawyer but _Lynch_.
Unlike most travelers through Mississippian territory, I entered it
from the south--by the mouth of its main river--making my first station
in the city of New Orleans.
It was late in the spring when I arrived there. And soon after the red
cross, beginning to show itself on the doors of the humbler dwellings
that lay "swampward," warned me of the presence of that terrible
epidemic, which there annually decimated the ranks of such strangers as
were compelled to make their summer sojourn in the place.
Taking the hint, I bade a temporary adieu to New Orleans, intending to
return to it after the first frost in the "fall."
Straying northward, here and there halting as chance or caprice
directed, I was at length carried into the Ohio and up the Cumberland
river to the capital of Tennessee.
By this time the forest foliage had become tinged with red, and the
leaf was beginning to fall. My stay, therefore, in the "City of Rocks,"
though pleasant, was not prolonged; and I made preparations for leaving
it: not by a steamboat, as I had come, but on horseback--a mode of
traveling I much preferred, as, in fact, the only one by which such a
country can be properly seen.
With a stout roadster between my thighs, and a valise buckled to the
croup behind me, I took the Franklin "pike," leading southward from the
city.
I contemplated a long ride--so long, that were I to state the distance,
it might test the credulity of my reader; as it did that of a traveler,
who shortly after overtook me.
I had made some three miles along the dusty pike, and was nearly
opposite a large pile of building, standing to the right of the road,
when the traveler in question came gliding alongside.
He was upon a "pacer," and could soon have passed me; but instead
of doing so, he checked his steed into a walk, and rode by my side.
Glancing toward him, I saw that he was a young man, dressed in white
linen coat and trowsers, with well-fitting boots upon his feet, and a
Panama hat upon his head.
"A planter," was my reflection, "or the son of one;" for he did not
appear to be over twenty years of age.
"The Penitentiary!" he said, seeing that my eyes were fixed upon the
building. "You've been in there, I suppose?"
The question sounded so odd, that my first impulse was to answer it
with a laugh, which I did; though with no idea that it had been put
through any discourtesy.
My interrogator, perceiving the droll interpretation his speech
permitted, joined me in the laugh.
"Pardon me!" he said, apologizing. "Of course you know what I mean. I
take you to be a stranger in these parts, and supposed you might like
to know something of this State fortress of ours."
"A thousand thanks!" I rejoined. "You are right. I am a traveler, and
as such not without curiosity. The State Penitentiary you say it is. I
shall feel very much indebted to you for any information you may think
proper to give me about it."
"Suppose you go with me inside? I know the governor, and can get
admittance. It will be worth your while, if only to see Murrell."
"Murrell--who is he?"
"Oh! that of itself would tell you to be a stranger to Tennessee; else
you would have heard of him. Murrell is the great pirate and robber
of the Mississippi--long notorious upon the roads and rivers. He has
committed scores of murders, it is said; and several have been proved
against him. For all that, he is in for only _ten years_, and has
already served six of them. Would you like to have a look at him?"
"By all means."
"Come along, then!"
With this my new acquaintance wheeled his horse into the avenue leading
up to the gate of the State Prison, whither, without another word, I
followed him.
We were admitted, and courteously conducted through what appeared
far more like a vast manufacturing establishment than a place of
penal imprisonment; a manufactory, too, comprising almost every
trade known to the necessities of civilization. I there saw hatters,
tailors, shoemakers and carpenters; spinners and weavers, bakers and
blacksmiths; all busy at their respective employments. Among the
last-mentioned I saw the murderer Murrell--and through the coal grime
on his face, I could see the countenance of a man that by no means
belied his terrible reputation.
His history was given me on the spot. By trade, originally, a
blacksmith--the calling to which, like Vulcan, he was now condemned--he
had forsaken it for the more profitable profession of piracy--not upon
the high seas, as the term might seem to imply, but upon the rivers
of the Mississippi valley--especially the great stream itself--his
prey, instead of ships, being the "keels" and flat-boats descending,
cargo-laden, to New Orleans, or their crews, returning along the
up-river roads, and carrying the cash obtained for their commodities.
Murrell had been hard to catch, and harder still to convict. His
confederates could be counted by the score--among them merchants,
planters, justices of the peace, and even clergymen! The result was
that he was sentenced to _ten years_ in the Penitentiary, against at
least ten times the number of highway robberies, and perhaps twice the
count in horrid assassinations!
I shall never forget the disgust with which I contemplated this fiend
in human shape. Not for long. I was only too glad to get out of the
blacksmiths' shop, and lay my leg once more over the saddle.
But in that visit to the Tennessee State Prison, I became acquainted
with some facts that in part compensated for its unpleasantness.
I there learned that _crime may become its own cure_; that the industry
proceeding from it may be so applied as to remove its _cause_, or at
all events to _release the State from taxation_!
This fact, first discovered in the Tennessee Penitentiary, did not so
much strike me at the time. I was then but a careless student in the
science of political economy.
Only in later years did I fully understand a statistic so astounding.
Would that the bungling jailers of other and older States could
comprehend its importance!