A mystery! By heaven, I'll find it out.
If a man may!--_The Maiden_.
Speed, Malise, speed!--_Lady of the Lake_.
One of the most lovely pictures in lowland scenery which I have ever
looked upon is that around the mouth of a river which I have called the
Clearwater (the English translation of its Indian name), and which flows
between two of the southern counties of the western shore of Maryland.
From the northern shore of that stream, in this place wide and
beautiful, stretches out a long, flat strip of white sand, which is
covered here and there with patches of crab-grass, and of that kind of
cactus commonly called the prickly pear. On the western side of this
strip of sand is a deep and capacious harbour, much resorted to by
bay-craft and sea-going vessels, while waiting for a fair wind up or
down the bay. On its eastern side extends a gulf, or indentation of the
coast, called by sailors, if I remember rightly, Patuxent Roads, and
which expands towards, and mingles with, the broad and beautiful
Chesapeake. Along the shores of this gulf are shoals, famous in the
country round as resorts of the fish called drums, which circumstance
has given the name of Drum Point to the beach extending, as described,
between the Clearwater and Maryland's noble bay.
On the northern side of Drum Point harbour, and near to where the point
begins to curve away from the mainland, stood, during the second decade
of this century (and, indeed, for many years afterwards), a long,
single-storey frame building. This building, though placed upon the
sands, was still many yards away from the highest line reached by the
water at high tide. Directly behind it the land rose with a rapid swell
to a plateau, some thirty or forty feet above the shore of the harbour.
This frame structure was what is called in the United States a store,
and contained for sale such articles as are most in demand among seamen.
It belonged to an individual whom, for many reasons, I will call by a
fictitious name, Ashleigh, and who owned an estate of several hundred
acres, embracing all the eastern line of the harbour shore, and
extending some distance into the country behind it.
At the time of which I write, mysterious and very injurious stories,
about the owner of this store, circulated in the neighbouring country on
both sides of the Clearwater. It was said that he concealed smuggled
goods, and even goods captured by pirates on the high seas, until an
opportunity should occur for secretly conveying them to Baltimore for
sale; and that he was implicated in some way in the trials for piracy
held before one of the United States courts in Baltimore, in the early
part of the present century.
At about half-past twelve o'clock, on a night towards the end of May, in
the year 1817, three human figures stood upon the hill-side, overlooking
Drum Point harbour. The principal form in the group was that of John
Alvan Coe, a handsome young man of twenty-one or twenty-two years of
age, tall, and well proportioned. When seen in the day-time, his clear
blue eyes, Roman nose, and light chestnut hair, indicated a sanguine but
gentle character, and one endowed with dauntless courage, controlled by
a reflective mind. This young gentleman, the son of a planter in the
neighbourhood, once wealthy, but now much reduced in worldly
circumstances, was returning from his sport of night-fishing for drums,
accompanied by two sturdy negro men, who bore between them, suspended
upon a pole, the ends of which rested upon their shoulders, a large
basket, heavily laden with the scaly trophies of their recent sport.
Young Coe, while passing on his way to the fishing, about sunset, along
the hill-side on which he now stood, had noticed, among the two or three
vessels in Drum Point harbour, a beautiful brig of about a hundred and
twenty tons burden. She was remarkable among the other vessels for her
graceful figure, and the neat and trim appearance of everything on board
of her. On his return from the fishing, after leaving his boat hauled
up on the beach of a small cove on the east side of Drum Point, his path
lay across the low and sandy neck of land connecting the point with the
mainland, and then in a gradual ascent along the green hill-side
overlooking the harbour. While pursuing this path he had halted, with
his companions, in a position from which he could view to the best
advantage the fair and romantic scene which lay before him.
The moon, which was at its full, shed a softly brilliant silvery light
over land and water. Away towards the west spread the beautiful
lake-like expanse of the river--above five miles in length by two miles
in width--which is bounded northward and southward respectively by the
counties before referred to, eastward by Drum Point, and westward by the
long, slender and curving, and still more lovely Point Patience. The
waters of this fair expanse, softly stirred by a light breeze, gleamed
with myriads of lights and shadows under the moonlight spell. The front
of the low bluffs on the Saint Mary's side of the river, and the broad
beach of sand beneath them, glowed softly white in the beautiful light.
It was impossible that one endowed with the temperament of John Alvan
Coe could avoid, although constantly accustomed to scenes of natural
beauty, allowing his gaze to rest for a moment upon the charming view
before him. His attention was soon arrested, however, by something
which was occurring in the harbour under the hill on which he stood.
The only vessel remaining there was the beautiful brig which he had
noticed at sunset. Three boats, apparently heavily laden, had left the
brig and were coming towards the shore. Soon afterwards the young man
saw a light shining out from one of the back windows of the storehouse
on the beach.
There were some peculiarities in the character, or rather mental
constitution, of young Coe, with which it is necessary that I should
acquaint the reader, before we proceed farther in the narrative, of the
remarkable series of occurrences which arose to him out of the incidents
of this night. He not only loved danger for its own sake, but was
endowed with great fondness for romantic and stirring adventures. He
had a great and at times irresistible curiosity to investigate whatever
presented the appearance of darkness and mystery. In childhood this
peculiarity had mainly exhibited itself in a fondness for unravelling
riddles and conundrums; in more advanced youth, by solving, with great
patience and industry, the most difficult problems in mathematics. The
penetration of the meaning of the movement of the boats from the brig at
such an hour irresistibly called to mind, as it did, the mysterious
reports of smugglers and pirates in connection with this place,
presented an especial fascination to a mind constituted as was his. His
resolution was immediately formed to discover, at all hazards, the
meaning of what was taking place beneath him.
It should have been mentioned before, perhaps, that the hill-side above
the harbour was covered, to a great extent, with a growth of bushes,
with a tree here and there. It was under one of the latter, whose dense
shadow hid them from the view of those in the boats, that the
fishing-party stood, while young Coe was making the observations
recorded above. As soon as he formed the resolution already mentioned,
the young man addressed the two negro men--
"Boys," he said, "take up the basket"--they had put it down to rest
themselves--"and go on. I shall follow you very soon. But do not wait
for me, even though I should not overtake you before you get home."
The two negroes resumed their load and again started on their path. The
young man waited until they had passed out of sight over the hill, and
until the boats had landed and the men belonging to them had, after a
number of trips between the boats and the storehouse, transferred all
the lading to the latter, and themselves remained under its roof. He
then cautiously descended the hill, concealing himself as much as
possible by interposing, whenever he could do so, the bushes between
himself and the shore. In a few minutes he arrived beneath the window
of the store-room from which the light that he had before observed was
still shining.
Guardedly he looked in. The counter had been entirely removed from its
place, revealing a long and narrow opening in the floor, and steps
leading downwards. Silks and other costly dry goods, and a number of
boxes and other closed packages, were piled on the counter and floor. A
lamp, casting a bright light, stood upon the counter, and another light
shone from an opening in the floor; and men were seen carrying the
merchandise into the cellar to which the steps below the floor led, and
returning at short intervals for more. Two or three other men were
standing on the floor of the store-room; one or the other of whom
seemed, from time to time, to be giving directions to those who were
removing the piles of goods to the apartment below.
There was a tall and handsome man on the side of the room opposite to
the window at which young Coe was standing, who leaned against the
closed door which looked, when opened, upon the river. This man wore a
dark dress, and a black hat with a broad slouched brim, which threw a
dense shadow over the upper part of his countenance. The long black
beard from his unshaven face reached half way from his chin to his
waist. This man did not speak, except to make a remark now and then to
the two or three men who were not engaged in removing the goods.
Among all the men whom young Coe saw, there was not one whom he
recognised as having been seen by him before. If Mr Ashleigh himself
was engaged in what was taking place, he must have been in the cellar.
John Alvan Coe had barely time to make the observations recorded above,
when the tall and quiet individual, who was leaning against the closed
door, beckoned to a man near him, to whom he made some remarks in a low
tone. This man immediately spoke to the others who were standing about
on the floor of the store room. Instantly all in the room who were not
engaged in removing the goods--except the long-bearded man who wore the
slouched hat, and who, with a motion not at all hurried, opened for them
the door against which he had been leaning--sallied forth upon the
sands.
The young man waited for no further development. Supposing very
naturally, what was the case, that he had been discovered, and that this
party were sent in pursuit of him, he immediately turned away from the
window and plunged into the pathway leading up the hill towards Mr
Ashleigh's residence. No action, under the circumstances, could have
shown the quick perception and ready decision of his mind to more
advantage than his at once taking to this pathway; for, after he was
once seen by his pursuers, his concealing himself amongst the few trees
and scattered clumps of bushes along the hill-side would have been no
safeguard under the almost daylight brightness of the clear moonlight.
Such a course would have given to his pursuers only a limited space of
ground to search over at their leisure, with the absolute certainty of
discovering his place of concealment and making him prisoner. His
taking the plain pathway to the hill-top made his escape depend upon his
fleetness of foot, but only for a short distance; the hill once
surmounted, a dense forest spread for miles along the route which he had
to pursue. He had no uneasiness or doubt in trusting to his speed; for,
inured by daily exercise, he had long been considered the boldest leaper
and fleetest runner in all the country side.