AN ENEMY’S TRIUMPH.
A week passed away, more quickly and pleasantly than Robert could have
imagined, and he daily had secret interviews with the fair Vivien, and
her sweet presence soothed him to bear with something of calmness and
patience his torturing imprisonment and suspense.
Robert told his fair sister, as he called her, of Dora, and of all her
enchanting ways, her beauty and accomplishments, painting her in the
most glowing colors, until Vivien said that she already loved her, and
longed to see one whom she knew must be good and beautiful, to win so
noble and true a heart as his own.
Strange though it may seem, her own heart was not touched by the many
engaging qualities which Robert possessed, other than with a pure
sisterly affection. She never dreamed of loving him, herself, which many
a girl of less mind and character would surely have done. Their
intercourse was pure, free, and ennobling, such as two delicate,
accomplished, and high-minded persons could not help enjoying to the
uttermost.
Notwithstanding all this, there were many hours of weariness and
impatience which our hero spent by himself. It chafed him almost beyond
endurance to be thus shut off from all communication with the outer
world; to be so confined that he could do nothing for himself, or demand
or secure redress from others for his wrongs; and most of all, cut off
from all possibility of rescuing his darling from the fate which he had
been told awaited her.
He would have felt tenfold more miserable had he even dreamed that not a
dozen yards from his own chamber, which hour after hour he paced in such
an angry and discontented mood, his father lay in a dark and dismal
cell, a close and unhappy prisoner.
Poor Mr. Ellerton was unhappy indeed, for he felt that he had almost
willfully thrown himself into his present situation, by so utterly
disregarding the warning he had received. A week had passed since his
abduction, and as he sat brooding over his situation, a slight rustling
outside his door caused him to look quickly up, with a faint hope at his
heart that some friend might be at hand.
His hope was quickly crushed, however, as he caught sight of the ugly
face, with its cruel and sinister expression, which peered eagerly at
him from between the iron bars of his prison door.
Ugh! what a horrible face it was! with its wolfish grin and snaky
red-black eyes. Despite its ugliness it had a familiar look; but where
or when he had ever seen it he could not recall to mind.
“Ha! my friend,” said the stranger, in a disagreeable voice, and with
intense irony. “You don’t seem to remember me, do you?”
“No, sir, I do not,” was the reply. “And yet there is something about
your face that seems familiar.”
“Um!—it’s a pleasant face to you, no doubt,” was the sneering rejoinder.
Mr. Ellerton made no answer. He loathed the very sight of this man, but
resolved not to gain his ill-will by making any incautious remark.
The stranger eyed him balefully, while he kept hopping uneasily first
upon one foot and then upon the other; at length he said, grimly:
“Um! I presume if you don’t remember me you do Jessie Almyr! Ha! that
touches you in a tender spot, doesn’t it?” said the villain, with a
horrible grin, as the other started violently, and flushed to his very
brows with a deep crimson, at hearing one whom he had tenderly loved and
reverenced spoken thus lightly of, and by such a monster, too.
At last, raising himself to his full height, he replied, proudly:
“Of course I remember one who was my wife. But I do not know who you are
that dare mention her name to me in that tone.”
“Oh, no! But you probably know who it was that dared to steal her from
her rightful lover; curse you!”
“Ha! I know you now, Ralph Moulton!” replied the unhappy man, again
closely scrutinizing his enemy’s face, going nearer to the grating for
that purpose. “Yes, I know you now,” he continued; “but I cannot
understand what has brought you here, unless you are a prisoner like
myself. However that may be, I wish no conversation with you, under any
circumstances, with regard to my marriage. I will say this, though, as
the subject has been mentioned: Miss Almyr probably accepted me for her
husband because she loved me and considered me worthy to fill that
place; and Heaven knows that I loved and cherished her as the apple of
my eye; and life has been dark and dreary enough to me since she left me
for her happy home above.”
As Mr. Ellerton finished speaking, he turned away from the intruder at
his door, as if to put an end to any further conversation, and again
seating himself, buried his sad face in his hands.
Squire Moulton, exasperated at his enemy’s calm dignity of manner, and
at his inability to excite his anger, fairly gnashed his teeth, and in a
frenzy of passion, exclaimed:
“It is a lie—a base lie! You know that you came with your flattery and
honeyed words, your wealth and baby face, and won her from me—me, who
had always loved her, and whose whole life had been one continual study
for her happiness and the gratification of her every wish, in the hope
that she would one day be mine. She would have been my wife, but for
your coming. She had almost promised me, when you interposed your form
between us, and blinded her eyes, and snatched her away from as true a
heart as ever beat within a human breast. There was no more joy or
sunshine in the dreary world for me. The very sun was black and the
stars went out, and demons from the lowest depths of Hades possessed my
soul, spurring me on to desperation and revenge. Yes, revenge; and I
swore it then and there in my maddening agony. I vowed, and called upon
Heaven to witness my oath, that you should yet writhe and suffer even as
I did; that you should cry out in your misery for mercy, but that you
should cry and plead in vain. I have followed and dogged you ever since,
striving to wreak my vengeance upon you. But the Fates have been against
me, with the exception of once or twice, until now. Now that you are in
my power, my very soul pains me with the intense desire I have to see
your torture and misery begin; to see you clasp your hands, and on your
knees sue for mercy; to see you beat your breast, tear your hair, and
plead and beg for death to release you from your torments!”
The villain had wrought himself to the highest pitch of excitement, and
he fairly shrieked out his last words, as he shook his fist in the face
of his astonished rival.
I say astonished, for Mr. Ellerton had never dreamed that any defeated
lover would carry his disappointment to such an extent, and he gazed
upon the furious man with a sort of stupid amazement, as he realized
that this jealous and revengeful lover of so many years ago was the
cause of his present suffering and imprisonment.
He knew that he had always hated him for being his successful rival, and
for that reason always kept out of his way, thinking the less he had to
do with him the better. He had never thought of such a thing as his
attempting to revenge himself, until six years ago, when he married
Robert and Dora.
He recognized the fact then, and cursed him for it, but supposed that
would be the extent to which he would carry it.
Now that he found he had been hated, cursed, and pursued all his
life-time, and for this one offense, he could not help regarding with
wonder the man who had devoted his whole life to such an unworthy and
dishonorable purpose.
“Ha! ha! ha!” wildly laughed the still intensely excited squire, when he
had regained his breath. “You may well look surprised. Methinks I can
astonish you still more. Listen! I followed you, years ago, when you
made your trip after the death of your darling. I tried to steal your
child—her child, and put my own nephew in his place. But that cursed
nurse of yours was too quick for me, and I only got a sore and aching
head for my pains. Yes, yes,” he hissed, as he saw the light beginning
to break over Mr. Ellerton’s face. “It was probably the fright I gave
her that caused her death. You possibly remember how hard she tried to
tell you something when she was dying? Yes, well, that was it. And had
you not suddenly disappeared from the place, I should have tried another
grab at the youngster.”
“Villain, do you mean to tell me that you have allowed such a pitiful
jealousy to lead you to such crimes? Beware, lest they descend with
tenfold force upon your own vile head!” exclaimed Mr. Ellerton, his eye
flashing with angry excitement.
“Ha! you are beginning to be touched, are you? Good! that is what I came
here to-day for. I want to see you cringe beneath my power. It is very
sweet to me to see you so; it quiets my nerves, and fills my heart with
exultant joy, and I trust to see your proud head bowed still lower
before I have done with you,” sneered the monster.
“Leave my presence, vile fiend! I will not be polluted by so evil a
thing,” commanded Mr. Ellerton, angrily.
“Not quite so fast, my lord,” replied the squire, mockingly. “I have not
yet finished my interesting narrative. I would like to give you a list
of the things I have done, rather than of those I have tried to
accomplish. I reckon I gave your pride a severe blow when I married your
only child to a beggar. You may look as lofty and scornful as you
choose, but for all that I knew it cut deep, as I meant it should, else
you would not have separated them, and banished your boy from his home
and his native land——”
“Hold, you scoundrel!” shouted the now thoroughly enraged man, but with
a gleam of triumph in his eye. “Hold! and let me tell you for your
benefit, that the girl is not a beggar, as you imagine, but the sole
heiress of hundreds of thousands, and that, if my son chose to claim her
to-day, he would have my full and free consent to do so. How does that
compare with the heavy blow to my pride that you tell about?”
Squire Moulton threw back his grizzled head and laughed a long, loud,
and scornful laugh, making the dull and unearthly echo ring again and
again through the dim, low vaults. It was the utter abandonment of the
most fiendish joy, and his captive, goaded almost to madness by its
mocking tones, gazed upon him with a look in which perplexity, fear, and
anger were mingled.
What did it mean—that taunting, derisive peal of laughter? Could it be
possible that he had been so closely watched and followed that his rival
knew of the signatures attached to that document lying so safely stowed
away in his pocket?
Could it be that his son, like himself, had been enticed into captivity?
He began to think so, and his heart sank like a stone, as he marked the
look of gloating triumph that gleamed upon him from the savage eye of
the wicked squire.