Vengeance will sit above our faults; but till
She there do sit,
We see her not, nor them.
DR. DONNE.
It is hardly necessary to direct the reader's attention to the quickness
and ingenuity at all times displayed by Robin Hays, or the facility with
which he adapted himself to any circumstance or situation that was
likely to favour or further his designs. The moment the Rabbi had stated
his intention of visiting Hampton Court, he perceived that, as a Jewish
servant, he might have abundant opportunities of ascertaining the
precise condition of the Cavalier: fortunately for his purpose, the
mention of Hugh Dalton's name at once decided Ben Israel in granting his
request.
The Jew had received intimation that the noted and well-known commander
of the Fire-fly had been lying off St. Vallery, and making many
inquiries relative to his daughter, who had at length been traced on
board his cruiser by her continental friends. "Doubtless," thought the
Rabbi, "I may be enabled to draw forth, or bribe forth, from this his
associate, whatever knowledge he may possess of the views and objects
which they contemplate as regards my most wretched daughter." In
pursuance of this plan he commenced a series of examinations as they
journeyed towards Hampton Court; which Robin, with all his dexterity,
would have found it difficult to parry, if he had had any intention or
desire so to do. Suddenly it occurred to the Ranger that the pretended
dumb boy was no other than Ben Israel's daughter, and he frankly
mentioned his suspicions.
The old man at first shrank from the supposition with extreme horror.
"It was impossible," he said, "that his child should so far forget her
birth and station, as to degrade herself by assuming male attire;" but
Robin reminded him that when a woman loves, as she must have done, and
has once sacrificed her duty, perhaps her honour, all obstacles become
as nought. The Jew groaned heavily, and remained long silent; she was
his only, and his beloved one; and, though the Jewish laws were strict,
even unto death, against any who wedded with strangers, yet he loved her
despite her disobedience, and the more he thought, the more resolved he
became to punish the betrayer of her innocence and faith.
Robin was also greatly distressed; the fear of some evil occurring to
Barbara took forcible possession of his mind. Why should this girl, if
indeed Jeromio's charge was actually a girl, why should she menace
Barbara? What had Barbara to do with the foul transaction? Could it be
possible, that, from her being tricked out with so much finery, the
stranger mistook the maid for the mistress; and with impotent rage, was
warning or threatening her, in an unknown tongue, against a marriage
with Burrell! He could not comprehend the matter; and the more he was at
fault, the more anxious he became. He, in his own mind, reproached even
the Buccaneer for imparting to him only half measures.
"Had I known," thought Robin, "the true particulars about Sir Willmott's
affairs, of which I am convinced, from many circumstances, Dalton was
in full possession, I could have assisted in all things, and prevented
results that may hereafter happen." There was another idea that had
lately mingled much with the Ranger's harassed feelings--Constantia's
intended marriage. Robin was satisfied that a strong regard, if not a
deeply-rooted affection, existed between Walter De Guerre and Barbara's
kind mistress; and he thought that Hugh Dalton's manifesting so little
interest on the subject was not at all in keeping with his usually
chivalrous feelings towards woman-kind, or his professed esteem and
affection for his young friend. He knew that the Buccaneer's heart was
set upon attaining a free pardon; and he also knew that he had some
powerful claim upon the interest of Sir Robert Cecil; he knew, moreover,
Dalton's principal motive for bringing over the Cavalier; but with all
his sagacity, he could not discover why he did not, at once and for
ever, set all things right, by exhibiting Sir Willmott Burrell in his
true colours. Robin had repeatedly urged the Buccaneer on this subject,
but his constant reply was,--
"I have no business with other people's children; I must look to my own.
If they have been kind to Barbara, they have had good reason for it. It
will be a fine punishment, hereafter, to Sir Willmott; one that may
come, or may not come, as he behaves; but it will be a punishment in
reserve, should he, in the end, discover that Mistress Cecil may be no
heiress." In fact, the only time that the Buccaneer felt any strong
inclination to prevent the sacrifice Constantia was about to make, was
when he found that she knew her father's crime, but was willing to give
herself to misery as the price of secrecy; then, indeed, had his own
pardon been secured, he would have stated to the Protector's face the
deep villany of the Master of Burrell. Until his return on board the
Fire-fly, and his suppression of the mutiny excited by Sir Willmott and
the treachery of Jeromio, he had no idea that Burrell, base as he knew
him to be, would have aimed against his life.
The Buccaneer was a brave, bold, intrepid, careless man; more skilled in
the tricks of war than in tracing the secret workings of the human mind,
or in watching the shades and modifications of the human character. His
very love for his daughter had more of the protecting and proud care of
the eagle about it, than the fostering gentleness with which the tender
parent guards its young; he was proud of her, and he was resolved to use
every possible means to make her proud of him. He had boasted to Sir
Robert Cecil that it was his suspicions made him commit "_forged_
documents to the flames," at the time when the baronet imagined that all
proofs of his crimes had been destroyed; but, in truth, Dalton had
mislaid the letters, and, eager to end all arrangements then pending, he
burned some papers, which he had hastily framed for the purpose, to
satisfy Sir Robert Cecil. When in after years it occurred to him that,
if he obtained those papers he could wind Sir Robert to his purpose, he
searched every corner of the Gull's Nest Crag until they were
discovered; so that, in fact, he owed their possession to chance, and
not to skilfulness. Even the boy Springall had seen through the
Italian's character; but Dalton had been so accustomed to find his
bravery overwhelmingly successful, and consequently to trust to it
almost implicitly, that his fine intellect was suffered to lie dormant,
where it would have often saved him from much that he endured. If he had
thought deeply, he would have seen the impropriety of trusting the
Fire-fly at any time to Jeromio's command, because, as he had found him
guilty of so many acts of treachery towards others, he should have
known, that it only needed sufficient bribery, or inducement of any
other kind, to turn that treachery upon himself.
His last interview with Sir Robert Cecil had made him aware that the
baronet had really lost the greater part of the influence he once
maintained at Whitehall; and since he had been so much off and on the
English coast, he had heard enough to convince him that Cromwell granted
few favours to those who had not much usefulness to bestow in return.
Sir Robert was broken in intellect and constitution: he had no son to
whom the Protector could look for support in case of broil or
disturbance, and the Buccaneer was ignorant of the strong and friendly
ties that had united the families for so long a series of years. He had
fancied that fear would compel Sir Willmott Burrell to press his suit;
but the atrocious attempt upon his life assured him that there was
nothing to expect from him but the blackest villany. When, therefore, he
despatched, with all the ferocity of a true Buccaneer, the head of
Jeromio as a wedding-present to Sir Willmott, he at the same time
transmitted to the Protector, by a trusty messenger, the Master of
Burrell's own directions touching the destruction of the Jewish Zillah,
and stated that if his Highness would grant him a free pardon, which he
had certain weighty reasons for desiring, he believed it was in his
power to produce the Rabbi's daughter. His communication concluded by
entreating that his Highness would prevent the marriage of the Master of
Burrell, at all events until the following week.
His envoy had particular orders neither to eat, drink, nor sleep, until
he had found means of placing the packet in the hands of the Protector.
Dalton having so far eased his mind, bitterly cursed his folly that he
had not in the first instance, instead of proceeding to St. Vallery in
search of the Jewess, informed Ben Israel of the transaction, who would
at once have obtained his pardon, as the price of his daughter's
restoration and Burrell's punishment.
It will be easily conceived that on the night which Burrell expected to
be the last of the Buccaneer's existence he neither slumbered nor slept.
The earliest break of morning found him on the cliffs at no great
distance from the Gull's Nest Crag, waiting for the signal that had been
agreed upon between Jeromio and himself, as announcing the success of
their plan. There was no speck upon the blue waves between him and the
distant coast of Essex, which, from the point on which he stood, looked
like a dark line upon the waters; neither was there, more ocean-ward, a
single vessel to be seen. He remained upon the cliff for a considerable
time. As the dawn brightened into day, the little skiffs of the
fishermen residing on the Isle of Shepey put off, sometimes in company,
sometimes singly, from their several anchorings. Then a sail divided the
horizon, then another, and another; but still no signal told him that
treachery had prospered. At length the sun had fully risen. He then
resolved upon hastening to the Gull's Nest, with the faint hope that
some message from Jeromio might have been forwarded thither. Time was to
him, upon that eventful morning, of far higher value than gold; yet
above an hour had been spent in fruitless efforts to learn the result of
an attempt on which he knew that much of his future fate depended. He
had not proceeded far upon his course, when he was literally seized upon
by the Reverend Jonas Fleetword, who ever appeared to the troubled and
plotting Sir Willmott in the character of an evil genius.
"I have sought thee as a friend," observed the simple-minded man,--"as a
petitioner, I had almost said, so earnest was the lady about it--from
the Lady Frances Cromwell, to beg that the bridal, which even now,
according to thy directions, he of the Episcopalian faith was preparing
to solemnise, might be delayed until evening, in consequence of Mistress
Cecil being somewhat ill at ease, either in body or in mind, or, it may
be the Lord's will, in both;--very ill of a surety she is."
"This is trifling," exclaimed Burrell in anger. "She asked delay, and I
granted till this morning. I can brook no such vain excuse."
"Of a verity," quoth Fleetword, "thy reply is, as I deem it, given in a
most unchristian spirit. Thy bride elect is ill; and instead of a shower
(which is emblematic of tears) cometh a storm, which (in poetic
language) signifieth anger!"
"Forgive me, sir," replied Burrell, who perceived that the delay, under
such circumstances, however dangerous, must be granted; "but it is
natural for a bridegroom to feel disappointed when there arises any
postponement to his long looked-for happiness, particularly when there
be reasons strong as mine against it."
Fleetword little comprehended the meaning of this last sentence; but
drawing forth a pocket Bible, which on more than one occasion had given
much trouble to Sir Willmott Burrell, he told him he had considered that
admirable portion of the Scripture touching the duty of husband and
wife, so well set forth therein, and that he had composed a discourse
thereon, which he meant to deliver unto them after the holy ceremony,
but that he would now expound much upon the subject, as they journeyed
homeward.
"I am not going direct to Cecil Place," was Burrell's excuse; "I am
looking after one Robin Hays, who dwells somewhere near, or at, a place
called the Gull's Nest Crag: he was once my servant, and I desire to see
him."
"It is even one with me," replied Fleetword; "I know the lad Robin, too;
so I will go with thee, and read the while. I covet a holy exercise; and
for it every time, yea, and every place, is fitting."
Most cordially did Burrell wish the good preacher--no matter where; but
his wishes availed nought, for he remained close to his side, holding
forth, without intermission, in the same monotonous tone, that sounded
like the ding-dong, ding-dong of a curfew-bell to the knight's
bewildered ear.
Yet this was not the only source of embarrassment Sir Willmott was that
morning doomed to encounter. We have elsewhere had occasion to mention
an old tower that supported Gull's Nest, in which Barbara Iverk found
shelter the evening she did her lady's errand to the Crag: as Burrell
and his companion turned the corner by this tower, Zillah Ben Israel,
still habited as a boy, but wearing a tunic of cloth that reached below
her knee, stood before him!
Had a spectre sprung from the earth, Sir Willmott could not have
regarded it with greater astonishment or dismay. He would have passed,
but she still stood in his path, her head uncovered, and her black
luxuriant hair braided around it, displaying to full advantage her
strikingly beautiful but strongly marked Jewish features: her eyes,
black and penetrating, discovered little of gentle or feminine
expression, but sparkled and fired restlessly in their sockets: her lips
curled and quivered as she sought words, for some time in vain, in which
to address the false, base knight.
Fleetword was the first to speak.
"In the name of the Lord, I charge thee, avoid our path, young maniac!
for, of a truth, there is little sobriety, little steadiness, in thy
look, which savoureth neither of peace nor contentment. What wouldst
thou with my friend?--This is his bridal-day, and he has no leisure for
such as thee."
"The devil take thee with him, thou everlasting pestilence!" exclaimed
Burrell to the preacher, fiercely, forgetting all moderation in the
excess of his passion; for at the word "bridal" a change as awful as can
be imagined to shadow the face of woman rested on the countenance of
Zillah. "Avoid me, both of ye!" he continued; "and you, young sir, who
so eagerly rush upon your own destruction, avoid me especially: the time
for trifling is past!"
During this burst of rage, the Jewess kept her eyes steadily fixed upon
Burrell, and held her hand within the bosom of her vest. When he paused,
she addressed him at first in broken English, and then finding that she
could not proceed with the eagerness and fluency her case required, she
spoke in French.
She first appealed to her seducer's honour; referred to his marriage
with her; called to mind his protestations of affection, and used all
the entreaties which a woman's heart so naturally suggests, to arouse
his better feelings on her behalf. All was in vain; for Burrell parried
it all, managing to recover his self-possession while she exhausted
herself with words. She then vowed that, if he failed to render her
justice, she would, as she had threatened at a former time, throw
herself, and the proofs she possessed of his villany, at the Protector's
feet, and be his ruin. Sir Willmott then sought to temporise, assured
her that it was necessity obliged him to forsake her; and would have
persuaded her to meet him or go with him into the house, where, he
assured her, he could perhaps arrange--perhaps----
"No," she replied, in the less strong, but more poetic language of
France, "I will go under no roof with you, I will exchange no token, no
pledge with you. I believe you would follow me to the death; and if you
fail to do me justice, I will pursue you to the same, and not you alone.
No woman but myself shall ever rest upon your bosom. I swear by the God
of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, that I will have vengeance, though
my nation should spill out my blood as a sacrifice before the Lord for
my iniquities, the next hour!" She shook back her head as she pronounced
the vow, and her hair, loosened from its confinement, cloaked her slight
figure with a robe of darkness.
"Acknowledge your marriage with me before this holy man," she continued:
"although he is a Christian, I have heard that he is honest--and I will
leave you for a time."
"Peace, Zillah!" interrupted Burrell; "there was no marriage. It is a
fable of your own invention--you have no proof."
"Have I not?" she replied, and, with woman's luckless imprudence, she
drew forth a small packet and held it for an instant towards him. That
instant was enough: he snatched the documents from her hand, and held
them before her with the exultation of a demon. His triumph, however,
was but short-lived, for Fleetword, who comprehended what had passed,
was sufficiently alive to its importance to seize the papers from the
Master of Burrell before he had the least idea that the preacher would
have dared such an act. Sir Willmott stood amazed at his presumption:
but instantly Fleetword drew forth the basket-hilted sword we have
before noticed, and with more real intellect, and excellent feeling,
than a cavalier would have believed he possessed, exclaimed,--
"Sir Willmott Burrell! When Solomon sat in judgment in Israel, he
despised not the cause even of the worst. It hath been given me to
understand the tongues of many lands--not by the intervention of the
Holy Spirit, but by the industry and labour of my poor brain, aided, as
all just and fitting things are, by the blessing of the Lord! If what
this person says is true, it would be most unseemly for you to become
the husband of Mistress Constantia Cecil; if it is not true, why the
person must fall by its (for of a truth I cannot determine the sex)--its
own falsehood! But keep off, Master of Burrell! Jonas Fleetword can
fight for the truth by strength of hand as well as of voice; the
documents shall be heard of at the seat of judgment in our New
Jerusalem."
Sir Willmott, thus run down on all sides, had now recourse to stratagem.
After a brief pause, during which both Zillah and the preacher, as if
having come to the same determination, kept silence, he said,--
"Well; perhaps it is best. Will you, Zillah, go with me to Cecil Place?"
"No!" was her reply. "I will meet you there; but I frankly tell you, I
will not trust myself in your company under any roof, unless it be with
many persons."
"Then come there at seven o' the clock this evening--and I swear----"
"I have no faith in your oaths--but I will trust to this man; and if he
assures me that the accursed marriage shall not take place until I hold
commune with the woman you would wed--safe, and undisturbed commune--I
will leave you until night."
"Then I assure you of it," replied Fleetword; "and let this convince you
of my truth, that I love the sweet lady, Constance Cecil, too well, to
see her shadowed even by such dishonour as your words treat of.--Sir
Willmott, Sir Willmott! you have shown the cloven foot!"
"Look out on the waters, Sir Willmott Burrell," shouted the Jewess, in
her wild voice: "look out on the waters, and see the sail and the signal
of the brave Buccaneer!"
Burrell looked anxiously, and earnestly; but he could perceive nothing
of which she spoke. When he turned towards the spot where Zillah had
stood--she was gone!
"All this is of the evil one," said Fleetword, after peering among the
old walls, and approaching his nose so closely to the larger stones,
that it might be imagined he was smelling, not looking at
them.--"Whither has the creature escaped?"
"Verily, I know not," was Burrell's reply. "Best come with me into the
Gull's Nest; I would speak with Robin."
The unsuspicious preacher did as he was desired.
Sir Willmott inquired for the Ranger. His mother said, truly, "He was
gone a journey."
"For Hugh Dalton?"
"He had joined his ship."
He then managed privately to ask for the secret key of a place called
"the Cage," where contraband goods, not wanted for ready sale, were
generally deposited. It had no communication with any of the private
chambers, except by a narrow passage, which, leading to no other place,
was seldom traversed. Into this cage he managed to get Fleetword,
saying, "It was one of the ways out;" and while the preacher was looking
round with much curiosity, he turned the key, placed it safely in his
vest, and, without saying a word to Mother Hays, who, at such an early
hour was just beginning to be very busy, left the Gull's Nest with much
self-congratulation.
"Stay safely there but till another morning, poor meddling fool!" he
murmured; "and then, for your sweet Constantia's sake, you'll keep my
secret, and resign these cursed papers."
It is not to be imagined that Sir Willmott Burrell would, upon any
account, have suffered Zillah to make her appearance at Cecil Place. His
existence seemed now to hang upon her destruction; but instruments were
wanting: Roupall had been sent out of the way by Hugh Dalton, and
tidings were in vain expected of or from Jeromio. The slight relief
afforded by the imprisonment of Fleetword was speedily succeeded by a
state of mind bordering on madness.
Stopping for a few moments at the lodge of Cecil Place, he warned the
old porter not to admit, but to detain, any person, man or woman, who
might inquire for him, no matter under what pretext entrance might be
demanded; for he assured the old man there was a deranged youth, who
pretended to have known him abroad, and who, he was informed, had used
unaccountable threats against him. Sir Willmott, moreover, enforced his
instructions by a handsome present, and was proceeding to the house,
when the gate-bell rang, and a man, habited as a travelling merchant,
presented a parcel, directed "For Sir Willmott Burrell. These----"
Burrell commanded the messenger into the lodge room; the stranger, after
some hesitation, entered. Sir Willmott briefly dismissed the old porter,
and undid the packet; when, lo! the matted and gory head of the Italian,
Jeromio, rolled at his feet. There it lay, in all the hideous deformity
of sudden and violent death! the severed throat, thickened with gouts of
blood! the dimmed spectral eyes starting from their sockets! the lips
shrinking from the teeth of glaring whiteness--there it lay, looking up,
as it were, into the face of the base but horrified associate. His
utterance was impeded, and a thick mist came over him, as he sank into
the old porter's chair.
"What does this mean?" he said at length to the man, whom he now
recognised as one of the sailors of the Fire-fly.--"What means it?"
"A wedding present from Hugh Dalton, is all I heard about the matter,"
returned the fellow, quietly turning a morsel of tobacco in his mouth,
and eyeing the knight with ineffable contempt.
"You must give information of this most horrible murder--you witnessed
it--it will make your fortune," continued Sir Willmott, springing from
the seat, and, like a drowning man, seizing even at a straw. "I can take
your deposition--this most foul murder may make your fortune--think of
that.--What ho!" he would have called the porter, but the man prevented
him, and then burst into a laugh, wild as a wild sea-wave.
"Lodge informations! You a law-maker! May I never spin another yarn, but
ye are precious timber! Shiver and blazes! haven't ye with your palaver
and devilry worked harm enou' aboard our ship, but ye want me to be
pickled up, or swing from the yard-arm! No, no, master; I'll keep off
such a lee-shore. I've no objections in life to a--any thing--but ye'r
informations. Ah! ah! ah! what sinnifies a hundred such as that," and he
kicked at the bloody head, "or such as you," pointing to Sir Willmott,
"in comparison to the bold Buccaneer! Look here, master--whatever ye'r
name be--they say the law and the pirates often sail under false
colours; and blow me but I believe it now, when sich as you have to do
with one of 'em. Bah! I'd cry for the figure-head of our ship, if she
had sich a bridegroom."
"You shall not escape me, villain!" exclaimed Sir Willmott, rendered
desperate by his adverse fortunes, and springing towards the
seaman.--"But stay," he added, drawing back, "you," hesitatingly, "you
are honest to your captain: well, there is something you could do for
me, that----" He paused--and the sailor took advantage of the pause to
say,--
"A farewell and foul weather to ye, master! Look, if you could make ye'r
whole head into one great diamond, and lay it at my feet, as that
carrion lies at yours, may I die on a sandbank like a dry herring, if
I'd take it to do one of the dirty jobs ye're for ever plotting!"
Oh, what a degrading thing it is to be scoffed at by our superiors! How
prone we are to resent it when our equals meet us with a sneer! But when
the offscouring of society, the reptiles that we could have trodden
under foot, may rail at and scorn us with impunity, how doubly bitter,
how perfectly insupportable must it be! The very ministers of evil
scouted him, and sin and misery thought him too contemptible to deal
with! Burrell gnashed his teeth and struck his temples with his clenched
fist--the room turned round--the bloody head of Jeromio uplifted itself
to his imaginings, and gibbered, and cursed, and muttered, and laughed
at him in fiendish merriment! If Zillah could have seen Burrell at that
moment, she would have pitied and prayed for him: the strong man
trembled as a weak girl in the shiverings of a mortal fever--his heart
shuddered within his bosom--he lost all power of reasoning, and it was
not until huge drops of perspiration had forced their way along his
burning brow, that he at all recovered his faculties. He gazed around
the small apartment; but the man was gone. The lodge window that looked
on the road was open, and the knight's first effort was to reach it. The
pure air of heaven, breathing so sweetly upon his pale and agonised
countenance, revived him for the moment, and his energetic mind in a
short space was restrung and wound up to fresh exertion. He resolved to
set some of his own people to watch about the grounds, in case Zillah
should attempt to obtain entrance; and though he felt assured they
would do but little for him, yet he knew they would do much for gold,
and that he resolved they should have in abundance. The marriage once
over, he fancied himself safe--safe from all but the Buccaneer. Hope is
strong at all times, but never more so than when we are roused from
despair. He turned from the window, and his eye fell on the bloody head
of the traitor Jeromio. He knew that, if the porter saw it, there would
be an outcry and an investigation, which it was absolutely necessary,
under existing circumstances, to avoid; for old Saul was one of those
honest creatures who hold it a duty to tell all truth, and nothing but
truth, to their employers. He therefore wrapped it carefully in the
napkin in which it had been originally enveloped, and then covered it
over with his own kerchief. After another moment of deliberation, he
summoned the old man, and directed him to bear it to the house.
"But where is the stranger, sir?" inquired Saul.
"Oh, he passed from the window, to save you the trouble of unclosing the
gate."
It was fortunate for Sir Willmott Burrell that age had deprived Saul of
more faculties than one.