THE END OF TWO VICTIMS.
Walter Waters, or Captain Williams, as he called himself now, and in
fact He had come to England ostensibly as the commander of a trading
vessel, had determined to effect the escape of Horace Hunter. That his
own plans might not be disarranged by any violence towards the Earl, he
had on an accidental meeting in the West Indies promised Hunter a more
full revenge if he waited for three years; and feeling that his capture
had in some measure been owing to his appointment, he revolved in his
mind many plans for his rescue. His trial had taken place, and as the
evidence was conclusive, he was condemned to death. As his friends were
now permitted to see him, Walter with his daughter to whom and his
father he had made himself known in private, although he still stopped
at Mrs. Ally's when not in London, obtained permission to visit the
doomed man. Who shall attempt to portray the feelings of Mary Waters, as
in company with the parent so long mourned as dead, she set forth to
hold the last communication on earth with him to whom the treasure of
her young love had been given. Joy at once more beholding her father
mingled in painful intensity with her heart's desolation when she
contemplated the fearful position of her lover; and to her father's
assurances of rescuing him, of reclaiming him and of their union and a
happy life in America, she only replied by a mournful feature, and
pointing to her own emaciated form and hectic cheek. Her beauty had now
assumed an almost unearthly character. The lustre of her dark blue eye
and deathly paleness of her cheek told indeed her race was nearly run.
As they all stood together in the steward's house on the morning of
their visit, they formed a strange and touching group. The bowed figure
of the aged man whose life had been prolonged so far beyond the usual
term of man's existence, the strong form of the mariner, whose vigor was
unabated although near sixty, and the wasted figure and sharpened
features of his daughter, who though scarce more than past the threshold
of womanhood, was yet closer to the dread abyss of eternity than either.
The old steward looked wistfully after them as they passed out into the
wintry air.
Hunter's passion for drink, his remorse for the officer's death, his
burning thirst for vengeance, and his own sense of self-abasement--all
conspired to add to the fever of his brain; and when Walter and his
daughter were admitted to his cell, it was a gibbering maniac that
rushed forward to meet them. Walter removed his fainting daughter from
the appalling spectacle, and returned with a sickening heart and
terrible forebodings. The shades of evening had given place to bright
moonlight ere they reached the castle. The driver used his utmost speed,
but the snow hindered their progress, and just as they arrived at the
castle gates, the horses swerved violently, and starting to the side of
the road, stood snorting with terror. Walter sprang out, and in the
momentary strength caused by the excitement, his daughter followed him.
The Earl with some companions rode up at the moment of seeing the
carriage stopped; but a more ghastly obstacle obstructed their path--for
there in the snow drift at the gates of the mansion where her seducer
lived in splendor, lay the corpse of the once fair, gentle, and
accomplished Ellen Hunter.
The Earl gazed upon the body of his victim for a moment, and even his
callous heart was touched. It was evanescent, however, for on one of his
companions asking in a tone of coarse buffoonery, if he was
contemplating that frozen carrion with a view to ornamenting his hall
with it as a statue, he replied in the same strain, and was turning his
horse's head towards the gate, when he was arrested by the stern voice
of the mariner.
'Blasphemer, peace! Add not insult to the fearful injury you have
committed to that poor piece of clay! Man of the marble heart, your
career is near its close! This is not the only one of your crimes that
has resulted in death. There arises from the earth in South Carolina a
voice that calls for vengeance on her murderer. The child you thought
without a friend, whom you hoped would perish unknown, is even now
preparing to assert his rights, and drive you, titled bastard as you
know yourself to be, from your usurped position. Your agents have
confessed, and nothing can save you from the merited punishment of your
crimes. Repent, weep tears of penitence over this poor form, and make
your peace with God. You have but little time left ere man's justice
will claim you as its due.' He replaced his daughter in the carriage,
and lifting the body of poor Ellen as tenderly as if it had been a
child, placed it inside, and thus the dying and the dead departed.
At headlong speed the Earl reached his mansion, galled to madness. He
pondered long and deeply who the mysterious seaman could be, but could
arrive at no satisfactory conclusion; but reflecting that he still
possessed the only papers which could be produced in support of the
claimant of his title, he became more collected, and resolved first to
destroy the documents, and then to devise means for getting rid of the
obnoxious seaman, and also of his nephew, if he dared to press his
claim. Somewhat relieved by these considerations, he entered into an
explanation with his friends, spoke of the seaman as a harmless maniac,
and succeeded in calming the irritation of their wounded pride.
But he could not calm the raging tumult of his own heart--he had entered
into preliminary engagements for a marriage with the daughter of a house
as haughty as his own. His mother's fame would suffer, not that he cared
one jot for any abstract idea of virtue, and she had been sinless in
that at least, for she knew not that her husband had another wife. He
had been offered by the king, and had accepted a high confidential
mission to a foreign power, and now when every proud wish of his heart
seemed to be gratified, to be threatened with the loss of all--and more,
to be subjected to the vulgar gaze as a murderer--death he felt were
better. He drank deeply, which was not his usual custom, and to conceal
his feelings affected a wild gaiety, which, however, failed in deceiving
his companions. Midnight had long passed when he retired to his chamber,
harassed and jaded by the efforts he had made to preserve appearances,
and still more irritated by the wine he had drank. A vague feeling of
horror moreover began to steal over him. He looked out upon the
moonlight and drew his head in with a shudder, for he fancied--it was
but fancy, that he saw a body lying upon the ground. He tried to nerve
himself to the task of destroying the documents, but could not bring
himself to touch the casket. At length he opened the casket; a deep
groan seemed to issue from it. The long low musical laugh he had heard
before sounded in the room. The next moment he hardened himself and
began to read them over. They consisted of the letters mentioned before,
his father's marriage certificate, and the addition of a still more
important document--a statement drawn up by his father a little before
his death, in which he acknowledged Captain Piercy, the name his son had
been known by, prayed for forgiveness for the wrong he had done his
mother, and fully acknowledged his marriage with the fair Italian. This
was the document which had led the countess to persecute Captain
Williams, and her son to murder his brother's widow. He read them slowly
through, and taking them in his hand walked towards the fireplace; he
was about to cast them in, when the same low mocking voice sounded so
close him--he turned and beheld an appalling spectacle. The picture of
his own mother, that had occupied a large compartment of the room, had
entirely disappeared, although but the instant before he had seen
it--and in its place appeared the figures of a man in a full dress naval
uniform, and a lady in the costume of the one he had murdered in distant
America. He gave one wild shriek and fell senseless on the floor. To
seize the papers was to Edward, whom our readers will easily guess to
have personated the lady, but the work of a moment; he regained the
panel and swung it to just as the domestics were hurrying up; not
however before he had fixed upon the toilet with a penknife of the
Earl's, a paper with the word "doomed!" in large characters traced upon
it.