FRANK’S STORY.
“After you left,” said Frank, “all went to confusion. Potts lorded
it with a higher hand than ever, and my father was more than ever
infatuated, and seemed to feel that it was necessary to justify his
harshness toward you by publicly exhibiting a greater confidence in
Potts. Like a thoroughly vulgar and base nature, this man could not be
content with having the power, but loved to exhibit that power to us.
Life to me for years became one long death; a hundred times I would have
turned upon the scoundrel and taken vengeance for our wrongs, but the
tears of my mother forced me to use self-control. You had been driven
off; I alone was left, and she implored me by my love for her to stand
by her. I wished her to take her own little property and go with me and
Edith where we might all live in seclusion together; but this she would
not do for fear of staining the proud Brandon name.
“Potts grew worse and worse every year. There was a loathsome son of his
whom he used to bring with him, and my father was infatuated enough to
treat the younger devil with the same civility which he showed to the
elder one. Poor father! he really believed, as he afterward told me,
that these men were putting millions of money into his hands, and that
he would be the Beckford of his generation.
“After a while another scoundrel, called Clark, appeared, who was simply
the counterpart of Potts. Of this man something very singular was soon
made known to me.
“One day I was strolling through the grounds when suddenly, as I passed
through a grove which stood by a fish-pond, I heard voices and saw the
two men I hated most of all on earth standing near me. They were both
naked. They had the audacity to go bathing in the fishpond. Clark had
his back turned toward me, and I saw on it, below the neck, three marks,
fiery red, as though they had been made by a brand. They were these:”
and taking a pencil, Frank made the following marks:
[Illustration: ^ /|\ [three lines, forming short arrow]
R [sans-serif R]
+ [plus sign] ]
Louis looked at this with intense excitement.
“You have been in New South Wales,” said Frank, “and perhaps know
whether it is true or not that these are brands on convicts?”
“It is true, and on convicts of the very worst kind.”
“Do you know what they mean?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Only the worst are branded with a single mark, so you may imagine what
a triple mark indicates. But I will tell you the meaning of each.
The first (/|\) is the king’s mark put on those who are totally
irreclaimable and insubordinate. The second (R) means runaway, and is
put on those who have attempted to escape. The third (+) indicated a
murderous attack on the guards. When they are not hung, they are branded
with this mark; and those who are branded in this way are condemned to
hard work, in chains, for life.”
“That’s about what I supposed,” said Frank, quietly, “only of course you
are more particular. After seeing this I told my father. He refused
to believe me. I determined to bring matters to a crisis, and charged
Potts, in my father’s presence, with associating with a branded felon.
Potts at once turned upon me and appealed to my father’s sense of
justice. He accused me of being so far carried away by prejudice as not
to hesitate to invent a foul slander against an honest man. He said that
Clark would be willing to be put to any test; he could not, however,
ask him to expose himself--it was too outrageous but would simply assert
that my charge was false.
“My father as usual believed every word and gave me a stern reprimand.
Louis, in the presence of my mother and sister I cursed my father on
that day. Poor man! the blow soon fell. It was in 1845 that the crash
came. I have not the heart to go into details now. I will tell you from
time to time hereafter. It is enough to say that every penny was lost.
We had to leave the Hall and took a little cottage in the village.
“All our friends and acquaintances stood aloof. My father’s oldest
friends never came near him. Old Langhetti was dead. His son knew
nothing about this. I will tell you more of him presently.
“Colonel Lionel Despard was dead. His son, Courtenay, was ignorant of
all this, and was away in the North of England. There was Thornton, and
I can’t account for his inaction. He married Langhetti’s daughter too.
That is a mystery.”
“They are all false, Frank.”
Frank looked up with something like it smile.
“No, not all; wait till you hear me through.”
Frank drew a long breath. “We got sick there, and Potts had us taken
to the alms-house. There we all prayed for death, but only my father’s
prayer was heard. He died of a broken heart. The rest of us lived on.
“Scarcely had my father been buried when Potts came to take us away. He
insisted that we should leave the country, and offered to pay our way
to America. We were all indifferent: we were paralyzed by grief. The
alms-house was not a place that we could cling to, so we let ourselves
drift, and allowed Potts to send us wherever he wished. We did not even
hope for any thing better. We only hoped that somewhere or other we
might all die. What else could we do? What else could I do? There was no
friend to whom I could look: and if I ever thought of any thing, it
was that America might possibly afford us a chance to get a living till
death came.
“So we allowed ourselves to be sent wherever Potts chose, since it could
not possibly make things worse than they were. He availed himself of our
stolid indifference, put us as passengers in the steerage on board of
a crowded emigrant ship, the _Tecumseh_, and gave us for our provisions
some mouldy bread.
“We simply lived and suffered, and were all waiting for death, till one
day an angel appeared who gave us a short respite, and saved us for a
while from misery. This angel, Louis, was Paolo, the son of Langhetti.
“You look amazed. It was certainly an amazing thing that he should be on
board the same ship with us. He was in the cabin. He noticed our misery
without knowing who we were. He came to give us pity and help us. When
at last he found out our names he fell on our necks, kissed us, and wept
aloud.
“He gave up his room in the cabin to my mother and sister, and slept and
lived with me. Most of all he cheered us by the lofty, spiritual words
with which he bade us look with contempt upon the troubles of life and
aspire after immortal happiness. Yes, Louis; Langhetti gave us peace.
“There were six hundred passengers. The plague broke out among us. The
deaths every day increased, and all were filled with despair. At last
the sailors themselves began to die.
“I believe there was only one in all that ship who preserved calm reason
and stood without fear during those awful weeks. That one was Langhetti.
He found the officers of the ship panic-stricken, so he took charge of
the steerage, organized nurses, watched over every thing, encouraged
every body, and labored night and day. In the midst of all I fell sick,
and he nursed me back to life. Most of all, that man inspired fortitude
by the hope that beamed in his eyes, and by the radiancy of his smile.
‘Never mind, Brandon,’ said he as I lay, I thought doomed. ‘Death is
nothing. Life goes on. You will leave this pest-ship for a realm of
light. Keep up your heart, my brother immortal, and praise God with your
latest breath.’
“I recovered, and then stood by his side as best I might. I found that
he had never told my mother of my sickness. At last my mother and
sister in the cabin fell sick. I heard of it some days after, and was
prostrated again. I grew better after a time; but just as we reached
quarantine, Langhetti, who had kept himself up thus far, gave out
completely, and fell before the plague.”
“Did he die?” asked Louis, in a faltering voice.
“Not on ship-board. He was carried ashore senseless. My mother and
sister were very low, and were also carried on shore. I, though weak,
was able to nurse them all. My mother died first.”
There was a long pause. At last Frank resumed:
“My sister gradually recovered: and then, through grief and fatigue, I
fell sick for the third time. I felt it coming on. My sister nursed me;
for a time I thought I was going to die. ‘Oh, Edith,’ I said, ‘when I
die, devote your life while it lasts to Langhetti, whom God sent to us
in our despair. Save his life even if you give up your own.’
“After that I became delirious, and remained so for a long time. Weeks
passed; and when at last I revived the plague was stayed, and but few
sick were on the island. My case was a lingering one, for this was the
third attack of the fever. Why I didn’t die I can’t understand. There
was no attendance. All was confusion, horror, and death.
“When I revived the first question was after Langhetti and Edith. No one
knew any thing about them. In the confusion we had been separated, and
Edith had died alone.”
“Who told you that she died?” asked Louis, with a troubled look.
Frank looked at him with a face of horror.
“Can you bear what I am going to say?”
“Yes.”
“When I was able to move about I went to see if any one could tell
me about Edith and Langhetti. I heard an awful story; that the
superintendent had gone mad and had been found trying to dig open a
grave, saying that some one was _buried alive_. Who do you think? oh, my
brother!”
“Speak!”
“Edith Brandon was the name he named.”
“Be calm, Frank: I made inquiries myself at the island registry-office.
The clerk told me this story, but said that the woman who had charge of
the dead asserted that the grave was opened, and it was ascertained that
absolute death had taken place.
“Alas!” said Frank, in a voice of despair, “I saw that woman--the keeper
of the dead-house--the grave-digger’s wife. She told me this story, but
it was with a troubled eye. I swore vengeance on her unless she told me
the truth. She was alarmed, and said she would reveal all she knew if I
swore to keep it to myself. I swore it. Can you bear to hear it, Louis?”
“Speak!”
“She said only this: ‘When the grave was opened it was found that Edith
Brandon had not been dead when she was buried.’”
Louis groaned, and, falling forward, buried his head in both his hands.
It was a long time before either of them spoke. At last Louis, without
lifting his head, said:
“Go on.”
“When I left the island I went to Quebec, but could not stay there. It
was too near the place of horror. I went up the river, working my way as
a laborer, to Montreal. I then sought for work, and obtained employment
as porter in a warehouse. What mattered it? What was rank or station to
me? I only wanted to keep myself from starvation and get a bed to sleep
on at night.
“I had no hope or thought of any thing. The horrors through which I had
passed were enough to fill my mind. Yet above them all one horror was
predominant, and never through the days and nights that have since
elapsed has my soul ceased to quiver at the echo of two terrible words
which have never ceased to ring through my brain--‘Buried alive!’
“I lived on in Montreal, under an assumed name, as a common porter, and
might have been living there yet; but one day as I came in I heard the
name of ‘Brandon.’ Two of the clerks who were discussing the news in the
morning paper happened to speak of an advertisement which had long been
in the papers in all parts of Canada. It was for information about the
Brandon family.
“I read the notice. It seemed to me at first that Potts was still
trying to get control of us, but a moment’s reflection showed that to
be improbable. Then the mention of ‘the friends of the family’ made me
think of Langhetti. I concluded that he had escaped death and was trying
to find me out.
“I went to Toronto, and found that you had gone to New York. I had saved
much of my wages, and was able to come here. I expected Langhetti, but
found you.”
“Why did you not think that it might be me?”
“Because I heard a threat of Potts about you, and took it for granted
that he would succeed in carrying it out.”
“What was the threat?”
“He found out somehow that my father had written a letter to you. I
suppose they told him so at the village post-office. One day when he was
in the room he said, with a laugh, alluding to the letter, ‘I’ll uncork
that young Brandy-flask before long.’”
“Well--the notice of my death appeared in the English papers.”
Frank looked earnestly at him.
“And I accept it, and go under an assumed name.”
“So do I. It is better.”
“You thought Langhetti alive. Do you think he is?”
“I do not think so now.”
“Why not?”
“The efforts which he made were enough to kill any man without the
plague. He must have died.”
After hearing Frank’s story Louis gave a full account of his own
adventures, omitting, however, all mention of Beatrice. That was
something for his own heart, and not for another’s ear.
“Have you the letter and MS.?”
“Yes.”
“Let me read them.”
Louis took the treasures and handed them to Frank. He read them in
silence.
“Is Cato with you yet?”
“Yes.”
“It is well.”
“And now, Frank,” said Louis, “you have something at last to live for.”
“What is that?”
“Vengeance!” cried Louis, with burning eyes.
“Vengeance!” repeated Frank, without emotion--“Vengeance! What is
that to me? Do you hope to give peace to your own heart by inflicting
suffering on our enemies? What can they possibly suffer that can atone
for what they have inflicted? All that they can feel is as nothing
compared with what we have felt. Vengeance!” he repeated, musingly; “and
what sort of vengeance? Would you kill them? What would that effect?
Would he be more miserable than he is? Or would you feel any greater
happiness? Or do you mean something more far-reaching than death?”
“Death,” said Louis, “is nothing for such crimes as his.”
“You want to inflict suffering, then, and you ask me. Well, after all,
do I want him to suffer? Do I care for this man’s sufferings? What are
they or what can they be to me? He stands on his own plane, far beneath
me; he is a coarse animal, who can, perhaps, suffer from nothing but
physical pain. Should I inflict that on him, what good would it be to
me? And yet there is none other that I can inflict.”
“Langhetti must have transformed you,” said Louis, “with his spiritual
ideas.”
“Langhetti; or perhaps the fact that I three times gazed upon the face
of death and stood upon the threshold of that place where dwells the
Infinite Mystery. So when you speak of mere vengeance my heart does not
respond. But there is still something which may make a purpose as strong
as vengeance.”
“Name it.”
“The sense of intolerable wrong!” cried Frank, in vehement tones; “the
presence of that foul pair in the home of our ancestors, our own exile,
and all the sufferings of the past! Do you think that I can endure
this?”
“No--you must have vengeance.”
“No; not vengeance.”
“What then?”
“Justice!” cried Frank, starting to his feet. “Justice--strict, stern,
merciless; and that justice means to me all that you mean by vengeance.
Let us make war against him from this time forth while life lasts; let
us cast him out and get back our own; let us put him into the power of
the law, and let that take satisfaction on him for his crimes; let us
cast him out and fling him from us to that power which can fittingly
condemn. I despise him, and despise his sufferings. His agony will give
me no gratification. The anguish that a base nature can suffer is only
disgusting to me--he suffers only out of his baseness. To me, and with a
thing like that, vengeance is impossible, and justice is enough.”
“At any rate you will have a purpose, and your purpose points to the
same result as mine.”
“But how is this possible?” said Frank. “He is strong, and we are weak.
What can we do?”
“We can try,” said Louis. “You are ready to undertake any thing. You
do not value your life. There is one thing which is before us. It is
desperate--it is almost hopeless; but we are both ready to try it.”
“What is that?”
“The message from the dead,” said Louis, spreading before Frank that
letter from the treasure-ship which he himself had so often read.
“And are you going to try this?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I must first find out the resources of science.”
“Have you Cato yet?”
“Yes.”
“Can he dive?”
“He was brought up on the Malabar coast, among the pearl-fishers, and
can remain under water for an incredible space of time. But I hope
to find means which will enable me myself to go down under the ocean
depths. This will be our object now. If it succeeds, then we can gain
our purpose; if not, we must think of something else.”