describe the manner. They did escape from the establishment into the
islands, and though two of them were taken after a single day’s run at
liberty, Aaron Trow had not been yet retaken even when a week was over.
When a month was over he had not been retaken, and the officers of the
prison began to say that he had got away from them in a vessel to the
States. It was impossible, they said, that he should have remained in
the islands and not been discovered. It was not impossible that he might
have destroyed himself, leaving his body where it had not yet been
found. But he could not have lived on in Bermuda during that month’s
search. So, at least, said the officers of the prison. There was,
however, a report through the islands that he had been seen from time to
time; that he had gotten bread from the negroes at night, threatening
them with death if they told of his whereabouts; and that all the
clothes of the mate of a vessel had been stolen while the man was
bathing, including a suit of dark blue cloth, in which suit of clothes,
or in one of such a nature, a stranger had been seen skulking about the
rocks near St. George. All this the governor of the prison affected to
disbelieve, but the opinion was becoming very rife in the islands that
Aaron Trow was still there.
A vigilant search, however, is a task of great labour, and cannot be
kept up for ever. By degrees it was relaxed. The warders and gaolers
ceased to patrol the island roads by night, and it was agreed that Aaron
Trow was gone, or that he would be starved to death, or that he would in
time be driven to leave such traces of his whereabouts as must lead to
his discovery; and this at last did turn out to be the fact.
There is a sort of prettiness about these islands which, though it never
rises to the loveliness of romantic scenery, is nevertheless attractive
in its way. The land breaks itself into little knolls, and the sea runs
up, hither and thither, in a thousand creeks and inlets; and then, too,
when the oleanders are in bloom, they give a wonderfully bright colour
to the landscape. Oleanders seem to be the roses of Bermuda, and are
cultivated round all the villages of the better class through the
islands. There are two towns, St. George and Hamilton, and one main
high-road, which connects them; but even this high-road is broken by a
ferry, over which every vehicle going from St. George to Hamilton must
be conveyed. Most of the locomotion in these parts is done by boats, and
the residents look to the sea, with its narrow creeks, as their best
highway from their farms to their best market. In those days--and those
days were not very long since--the building of small ships was their
chief trade, and they valued their land mostly for the small scrubby
cedar-trees with which this trade was carried on.
As one goes from St. George to Hamilton the road runs between two seas;
that to the right is the ocean; that on the left is an inland creek,
which runs up through a large portion of the islands, so that the land
on the other side of it is near to the traveller. For a considerable
portion of the way there are no houses lying near the road, and there is
one residence, some way from the road, so secluded that no other house
lies within a mile of it by land. By water it might probably be reached
within half a mile. This place was called Crump Island, and here lived,
and had lived for many years, an old gentleman, a native of Bermuda,
whose business it had been to buy up cedar wood and sell it to the
ship-builders at Hamilton. In our story we shall not have very much to
do with old Mr. Bergen, but it will be necessary to say a word or two
about his house.
It stood upon what would have been an island in the creek, had not a
narrow causeway, barely broad enough for a road, joined it to that
larger island on which stands the town of St. George. As the main road
approaches the ferry it runs through some rough, hilly, open ground,
which on the right side towards the ocean has never been cultivated. The
distance from the ocean here may, perhaps, be a quarter of a mile, and
the ground is for the most part covered with low furze. On the left of
the road the land is cultivated in patches, and here, some half mile or
more from the ferry, a path turns away to Crump Island. The house cannot
be seen from the road, and, indeed, can hardly be seen at all, except
from the sea. It lies, perhaps, three furlongs from the high road, and
the path to it is but little used, as the passage to and from it is
chiefly made by water.
Here, at the time of our story, lived Mr. Bergen, and here lived Mr.
Bergen’s daughter. Miss Bergen was well known at St. George’s as a
steady, good girl, who spent her time in looking after her father’s
household matters, in managing his two black maid-servants and the black
gardener, and who did her duty in that sphere of life to which she had
been called. She was a comely, well-shaped young woman, with a sweet
countenance, rather large in size, and very quiet in demeanour. In her
earlier years, when young girls usually first bud forth into womanly
beauty, the neighbours had not thought much of Anastasia Bergen, nor had
the young men of St. George been wont to stay their boats under the
window of Crump Cottage in order that they might listen to her voice or
feel the light of her eye; but slowly, as years went by, Anastasia
Bergen became a woman that a man might well love; and a man learned to
love her who was well worthy of a woman’s heart. This was Caleb Morton,
the Presbyterian, minister of St. George; and Caleb Morton had been
engaged to marry Miss Bergen for the last two years past, at the period
of Aaron Trow’s escape from prison.
Caleb Morton was not a native of Bermuda, but had been sent thither by
the synod of his church from Nova Scotia. He was a tall, handsome man,
at this time of some thirty years of age, of a presence which might
almost have been called commanding. He was very strong, but of a
temperament which did not often give him opportunity to put forth his
strength; and his life had been such that neither he nor others knew of
what nature might be his courage. The greater part of his life was spent
in preaching to some few of the white people around him, and in teaching
as many of the blacks as he could get to hear him. His days were very
quiet, and had been altogether without excitement until he had met with
Anastasia Bergen. It will suffice for us to say that he did meet her,
and that now, for two years past, they had been engaged as man and wife.
Old Mr. Bergen, when he heard of the engagement, was not well pleased at
the information. In the first place, his daughter was very necessary to
him, and the idea of her marrying and going away had hardly as yet
occurred to him; and then he was by no means inclined to part with any
of his money. It must not be presumed that he had amassed a fortune by
his trade in cedar wood. Few tradesmen in Bermuda do, as I imagine,
amass fortunes. Of some few hundred pounds he was possessed, and these,
in the course of nature, would go to his daughter when he died; but he
had no inclination to hand any portion of them over to his daughter
before they did go to her in the course of nature. Now, the income which
Caleb Morton earned as a Presbyterian clergyman was not large, and,
therefore, no day had been fixed as yet for his marriage with Anastasia.
But, though the old man had been from the first averse to the match, his
hostility had not been active. He had not forbidden Mr. Morton his
house, or affected to be in any degree angry because his daughter had a
lover. He had merely grumbled forth an intimation that those who marry
in haste repent at leisure,--that love kept nobody warm if the pot did
not boil; and that, as for him, it was as much as he could do to keep
his own pot boiling at Crump Cottage. In answer to this Anastasia said
nothing. She asked him for no money, but still kept his accounts,
managed his household, and looked patiently forward for better days.
Old Mr. Bergen himself spent much of his time at Hamilton, where he had
a woodyard with a couple of rooms attached to it. It was his custom to
remain here three nights of the week, during which Anastasia was left
alone at the cottage; and it happened by no means seldom that she was
altogether alone, for the negro whom they called the gardener would go
to her father’s place at Hamilton, and the two black girls would crawl
away up to the road, tired with the monotony of the sea at the cottage.
Caleb had more than once told her that she was too much alone, but she
had laughed at him, saying that solitude in Bermuda was not dangerous.
Nor, indeed, was it; for the people are quiet and well-mannered, lacking
much energy, but being, in the same degree, free from any propensity to
violence.
“So you are going,” she said to her lover, one evening, as he rose from
the chair on which he had been swinging himself at the door of the
cottage which looks down over the creek of the sea. He had sat there for
an hour talking to her as she worked, or watching her as she moved about
the place. It was a beautiful evening, and the sun had been falling to
rest with almost tropical glory before his feet. The bright oleanders
were red with their blossoms all around him, and he had thoroughly
enjoyed his hour of easy rest. “So you are going,” she said to him, not
putting her work out of her hand as he rose to depart.
“Yes; and it is time for me to go. I have still work to do before I can
get to bed. Ah, well; I suppose the day will come at last when I need
not leave you as soon as my hour of rest is over.”
“Come; of course it will come. That is, if your reverence should choose
to wait for it another ten years or so.”
“I believe you would not mind waiting twenty years.”
“Not if a certain friend of mine would come down and see me of evenings
when I’m alone after the day. It seems to me that I shouldn’t mind
waiting as long as I had that to look for.”
“You are right not to be impatient,” he said to her, after a pause, as
he held her hand before he went. “Quite right. I only wish I could
school myself to be as easy about it.”
“I did not say I was easy,” said Anastasia. “People are seldom easy in
this world, I take it. I said I could be patient. Do not look in that
way, as though you pretended that you were dissatisfied with me. You
know that I am true to you, and you ought to be very proud of me.”
“I am proud of you, Anastasia----” on hearing which she got up and
courtesied to him. “I am proud of you; so proud of you that I feel you
should not be left here all alone, with no one to help you if you were
in trouble.”
“Women don’t get into trouble as men do, and do not want any one to help
them. If you were alone in the house you would have to go to bed without
your supper, because you could not make a basin of boiled milk ready for
your own meal. Now, when your reverence has gone, I shall go to work and
have my tea comfortably.” And then he did go, bidding God bless her as
he left her. Three hours after that he was disturbed in his own lodgings
by one of the negro girls from the cottage rushing to his door, and
begging him in Heaven’s name to come down to the assistance of her
mistress.
When Morton left her, Anastasia did not proceed to do as she had said,
and seemed to have forgotten her evening meal. She had been working
sedulously with her needle during all that last conversation; but when
her lover was gone, she allowed the work to fall from her hands, and sat
motionless for awhile, gazing at the last streak of colour left by the
setting sun; but there was no longer a sign of its glory to be traced in
the heavens around her. The twilight in Bermuda is not long and enduring
as it is with us, though the daylight does not depart suddenly, leaving
the darkness of night behind it without any intermediate time of
warning, as is the case farther south, down among the islands of the
tropics. But the soft, sweet light of the evening had waned and gone,
and night had absolutely come upon her, while Anastasia was still seated
before the cottage with her eyes fixed upon the white streak of
motionless sea which was still visible through the gloom. She was
thinking of him, of his ways of life, of his happiness, and of her duty
towards him. She had told him, with her pretty feminine falseness, that
she could wait without impatience; but now she said to herself that it
would not be good for him to wait longer. He lived alone and without
comfort, working very hard for his poor pittance, and she could see, and
feel, and understand that a companion in his life was to him almost a
necessity. She would tell her father that all this must be brought to an
end. She would not ask him for money, but she would make him understand
that her services must, at any rate in part, be transferred. Why should
not she and Morton still live at the cottage when they were married? And
so thinking, and at last resolving, she sat there till the dark night
fell upon her.
She was at last disturbed by feeling a man’s hand upon her shoulder. She
jumped from her chair and faced him,--not screaming, for it was
especially within her power to control herself, and to make no utterance
except with forethought. Perhaps it might have been better for her had
she screamed, and sent a shrill shriek down the shore of that inland
sea. She was silent, however, and with awe-struck face and outstretched
hands gazed into the face of him who still held her by the shoulder. The
night was dark; but her eyes were now accustomed to the darkness, and
she could see indistinctly something of his features. He was a low-sized
man, dressed in a suit of sailor’s blue clothing, with a rough cap of
hair on his head, and a beard that had not been clipped for many weeks.
His eyes were large, and hollow, and frightfully bright, so that she
seemed to see nothing else of him; but she felt the strength of his
fingers as he grasped her tighter and more tightly by the arm.
“Who are you?” she said, after a moment’s pause.
“Do you know me?” he asked.
“Know you! No.” But the words were hardly out of her mouth before it
struck her that the man was Aaron Trow, of whom every one in Bermuda had
been talking.
“Come into the house,” he said, “and give me food.” And he still held
her with his hand as though he would compel her to follow him.
She stood for a moment thinking what she would say to him; for even
then, with that terrible man standing close to her in the darkness, her
presence of mind did not desert her. “Surely,” she said, “I will give
you food if you are hungry. But take your hand from me. No man would lay
his hands on a woman.”
“A woman!” said the stranger. “What does the starved wolf care for that?
A woman’s blood is as sweet to him as that of a man. Come into the
house, I tell you.” And then she preceded him through the open door into
the narrow passage, and thence to the kitchen. There she saw that the
back door, leading out on the other side of the house, was open, and she
knew that he had come down from the road and entered on that side. She
threw her eyes around, looking for the negro girls; but they were away,
and she remembered that there was no human being within sound of her
voice but this man who had told her that he was as a wolf thirsty after
her blood!
“Give me food at once,” he said.
“And will you go if I give it you?” she asked.
“I will knock out your brains if you do not,” he replied, lifting from
the grate a short, thick poker which lay there. “Do as I bid you at
once. You also would be like a tiger if you had fasted for two days, as
I have done.”
She could see, as she moved across the kitchen, that he had already
searched there for something that he might eat, but that he had searched
in vain. With the close economy common among his class in the islands,
all comestibles were kept under close lock and key in the house of Mr.
Bergen. Their daily allowance was given day by day to the negro
servants, and even the fragments were then gathered up and locked away
in safety. She moved across the kitchen to the accustomed cupboard,
taking the keys from her pocket, and he followed close upon her. There
was a small oil lamp hanging from the low ceiling which just gave them
light to see each other. She lifted her hand to this to take it from its
hook, but he prevented her. “No, by Heaven!” he said, “you don’t touch
that till I’ve done with it. There’s light enough for you to drag out
your scraps.”
She did drag out her scraps and a bowl of milk, which might hold perhaps
a quart. There was a fragment of bread, a morsel of cold potato-cake,
and the bone of a leg of kid. “And is that all?” said he. But as he
spoke he fleshed his teeth against the bone as a dog would have done.
“It is the best I have,” she said; “I wish it were better, and you
should have had it without violence, as you have suffered so long from
hunger.”
“Bah! Better; yes! You would give the best no doubt, and set the hell
hounds on my track the moment I am gone. I know how much I might expect
from your charity.”
“I would have fed you for pity’s sake,” she answered.
“Pity! Who are you, that you should dare to pity me! By ----, my young
woman, it is I that pity you. I must cut your throat unless you give me
money. Do you know that?”
“Money! I have got no money.”
“I’ll make you have some before I go. Come; don’t move till I have
done.” And as he spoke to her he went on tugging at the bone, and
swallowing the lumps of stale bread. He had already finished the bowl of
milk, “And, now,” said he, “tell me who I am.”
“I suppose you are Aaron Trow,” she answered, very slowly.
He said nothing on hearing this, but continued his meal, standing close
to her so that she might not possibly escape from him out into the
darkness. Twice or thrice in those few minutes she made up her mind to
make such an attempt, feeling that it would be better to leave him in
possession of the house, and make sure, if possible, of her own life.
There was no money there; not a dollar! What money her father kept in
his possession was locked up in his safe at Hamilton. And might he not
keep to his threat, and murder her, when he found that she could give
him nothing? She did not tremble outwardly, as she stood there watching
him as he ate, but she thought how probable it might be that her last
moments were very near. And yet she could scrutinise his features, form,
and garments, so as to carry away in her mind a perfect picture of them.
Aaron Trow--for of course it was the escaped convict--was not a man of
frightful, hideous aspect. Had the world used him well, giving him when
he was young ample wages and separating him from turbulent spirits, he
also might have used the world well; and then women would have praised
the brightness of his eye and the manly vigour of his brow. But things
had not gone well with him. He had been separated from the wife he had
loved, and the children who had been raised at his knee,--separated by
his own violence; and now, as he had said of himself, he was a wolf
rather than a man. As he stood there satisfying the craving of his
appetite, breaking up the large morsels of food, he was an object very
sad to be seen. Hunger had made him gaunt and yellow, he was squalid
with the dirt of his hidden lair, and he had the look of a beast;--that
look to which men fall when they live like the brutes of prey, as
outcasts from their brethren. But still there was that about his brow
which might have redeemed him,--which might have turned her horror into
pity, had he been willing that it should be so.
“And now give me some brandy,” he said.
There was brandy in the house,--in the sitting-room which was close at
their hand, and the key of the little press which held it was in her
pocket. It was useless, she thought, to refuse him; and so she told him
that there was a bottle partly full, but that she must go to the next
room to fetch it him.
“We’ll go together, my darling,” he said. “There’s nothing like good
company.” And he again put his hand upon her arm as they passed into the
family sitting-room.
“I must take the light,” she said. But he unhooked it himself, and
carried it in his own hand.
Again she went to work without trembling. She found the key of the side
cupboard, and unlocking the door, handed him a bottle which might
contain about half-a-pint of spirits. “And is that all?” he said.
“There is a full bottle here,” she answered, handing him another; “but
if you drink it, you will be drunk, and they will catch you.”
“By Heavens, yes; and you would be the first to help them; would you
not?”
“Look here,” she answered. “If you will go now, I will not say a word to
any one of your coming, nor set them on your track to follow you. There,
take the full bottle with you. If you will go, you shall be safe from
me.”
“What, and go without money!”
“I have none to give you. You may believe me when I say so. I have not a
dollar in the house.”
Before he spoke again he raised the half empty bottle to his mouth, and
drank as long as there was a drop to drink. “There,” said he, putting
the bottle down, “I am better after that. As to the other, you are
right, and I will take it with me. And now, young woman, about the
money?”
“I tell you that I have not a dollar.”
“Look here,” said he, and he spoke now in a softer voice, as though he
would be on friendly terms with her. “Give me ten sovereigns, and I will
go. I know you have it, and with ten sovereigns it is possible that I
may save my life. You are good, and would not wish that a man should die
so horrid a death. I know you are good. Come, give me the money.” And he
put his hands up, beseeching her, and looked into her face with
imploring eyes.
“On the word of a Christian woman I have not got money to give you,” she
replied.
“Nonsense?” And as he spoke he took her by the arm and shook her. He
shook her violently so that he hurt her, and her breath for a moment was
all but gone from her. “I tell you you must make dollars before I leave
you, or I will so handle you that it would have been better for you to
coin your very blood.”
“May God help me at my need,” she said, “as I have not above a few penny
pieces in the house.”
“And you expect me to believe that! Look here! I will shake the teeth
out of your head, but I will have it from you.” And he did shake her
again, using both his hands and striking her against the wall.
“Would you--murder me?” she said, hardly able now to utter the words.
“Murder you, yes; why not? I cannot be worse than I am, were I to murder
you ten times over. But with money I may possibly be better.”
“I have it not.”
“Then I will do worse than murder you. I will make you such an object
that all the world shall loathe to look on you.” And so saying he took
her by the arm and dragged her forth from the wall against which she had
stood.
Then there came from her a shriek that was heard far down the shore of
that silent sea, and away across to the solitary houses of those living
on the other side,--a shriek, very sad, sharp, and prolonged,--which
told plainly to those who heard it of woman’s woe when in her extremest
peril. That sound was spoken of in Bermuda for many a day after that, as
something which had been terrible to hear. But then, at that moment, as
it came wailing through the dark, it sounded as though it were not
human. Of those who heard it, not one guessed from whence it came, nor
was the hand of any brother put forward to help that woman at her need.
“Did you hear that?” said the young wife to her husband, from the far
side of the arm of the sea.
“Hear it! Oh Heaven, yes! Whence did it come?” The young wife could not
say from whence it came, but clung close to her husband’s breast,
comforting herself with the knowledge that that terrible sorrow was not
hers.
But aid did come at last, or rather that which seemed as aid. Long and
terrible was the fight between that human beast of prey and the poor
victim which had fallen into his talons. Anastasia Bergen was a strong,
well-built woman, and now that the time had come to her when a struggle
was necessary, a struggle for life, for honour, for the happiness of
him who was more to her than herself, she fought like a tigress attacked
in her own lair. At such a moment as this she also could become wild and
savage as the beast of the forest. When he pinioned her arms with one of
his, as he pressed her down upon the floor, she caught the first joint
of the forefinger of his other hand between her teeth till he yelled in
agony, and another sound was heard across the silent water. And then,
when one hand was loosed in the struggle, she twisted it through his
long hair, and dragged back his head till his eyes were nearly starting
from their sockets. Anastasia Bergen had hitherto been a sheer woman,
all feminine in her nature. But now the foam came to her mouth, and fire
sprang from her eyes, and the muscles of her body worked as though she
had been trained to deeds of violence. Of violence, Aaron Trow had known
much in his rough life, but never had he combated with harder antagonist
than her whom he now held beneath his breast.
“By ---- I will put an end to you,” he exclaimed, in his wrath, as he
struck her violently across the face with his elbow. His hand was
occupied, and he could not use it for a blow, but, nevertheless, the
violence was so great that the blood gushed from her nostrils, while the
back of her head was driven with violence against the floor. But she did
not lose her hold of him. Her hand was still twined closely through his
thick hair, and in every move he made she clung to him with all her
might. “Leave go my hair,” he shouted at her, but she still kept her
hold, though he again dashed her head against the floor.