Ingraham, J. H. (Joseph Holt), 1809-1860 [1844], The midshipman, or, The corvette and brigantine: a tale of sea and land (F. Gleason, Boston) [word count] [eaf173].
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CHAPTER I.
Twilight in Portsmouth Harbor. The Corvette and Signal Gun.
The two Mansions. The Hero and fair Angler. The change of
Profession. The Midshipman's Warrant and the Progress of
Love.
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The sun had just set behind a terrace of purple clouds, edged with silver
and lined with ermine, and gently the shadows of a mellow twilight were
stealing over the bright blue waters of the harbor of Portsmouth. Not a
zephyr stirred the pendulous leaf of the feathery elm, or mottled the placid
surface of the waters of the small but beautiful bay, with its islands like emeralds
in a setting of turquoise, rivalling the sunny green of its pleasant
shores. The sun had been down some minutes, yet the skies were as rich
with the beautiful dyes as the inner surface of an Indian pearl shell. The
waters, like a mirror of steel, caught the rosy colors, and blending and softening
them, reflected them back more beautiful still. The roofs and turrets
and spires of the old town were yet glowing and rich from the lavish treasures
of painted light, which the sun scattered behind him as he departed,
and the cot of the poor man was for awhile more gorgeously decorated with
mingled orange and crimson, than an eastern palace of pearls and rubies.
But the glories of twilight gradually faded as the gray shadows of evening
rose up from the sea, and crept upon the land, and covered the green hill
tops, till a quiet, sober hue rested upon water and land, and veiling the sky
let the stars be seen. Yet it was not night, but twilight lingering between
sunset and night; for the outlines of the roofs, the spires, the distant villas,
the remote hills, were all clear and defined. It was day arrayed in a quaker
garb. The tradesmen in the town closed their shutters and locked their
doors to go homeward, yet stopping awhile to chat with their neighbors opposite,
or ask the news of the day of some townsmen they meet, look up at
the sky and prophecy about the weather tomorrow, and wonder if the wind'll
be likely to be fair to bring the craft into port! The cows were all in from
pasture and snugly yoked to their stalls, the milk-maid having done her
snowy task; the tap-room groups gather about the stoops to smoke their
evening pipe and talk politics till it shall grow dark enough to go home;
the cart-horse and his master, the stout drayman, both have rest; and the
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poor sewing girl relinquishes her hated needle, meekly receives her daily
pittance, puts on her cheap straw hat and cheaper shawl, and hurries thro'
the gathering darkness to her lodging room. The calm repose of evening
had settled upon land and water! Suddenly a flash reddened the atmosphere,
and a heavy gun fired from a corvette of twenty guns at anchor in
the stream, broke upon the sober quiet of the hour with startling distinctness.
The blue volumes of smoke had rolled sluggishly away from her
bows on the breezeless air and settled upon the water, ere a second gun was
discharged, which, like the other, reverberated through the close streets of
the town. A third report followed; and slowly and heavily the compact
mass of smoke moved towards the quay and covered the streets, tainting
the air breathed by the peaceful citizens with the warlike smell of powder.
The unusual report of cannon at this time, the sun having been set full
half an hour, drew many an idler to the piers, and led many an honest
craftsman to thrust his head from his door and glance with wondering looks
in the direction of the harbor; while divers were the speculations which
were started among neighbors as to the cause of this firing after night-fall.
The reports of the cannon were heard not only by the dwellers in the
town, but they awoke the echoes of hill-side, dell and dale for a league distant,
penetrating the humble cot of the farmer, and the stately villa of the
merchant, along the banks of the river. There were two dwellings within
reach of the sound, the inmates of which heard it with feelings deeper than
those of mere surprise. They were situated not far distant from each other,
but on opposite sides of the pleasant river about two miles from the corvette.
One of these edifices was stately and elegant in its apperance and
position. It crowned a gentle green eminence, sloping to the water-side,
and half hid amid sable oaks and elms of gigantic size. It was ornamented
by a colonnade in front, and a cupola rose proudly from the spacious level
roof from which was an extensive prospect of the town of Portsmouth, its
suburbs, its bay and islands, its navy yard and the blue sea in the distance.
An extensive lawn surrounded this abode of taste and wealth, and here and
there in a sunny afternoon, beneath the shade of its trees, might be seen a
few deer at play or browsing the short grass. A winding walk covered
with small pebbles led from the portico to the water-side, where was a picturesque
bathing-house, nearly hid by a water-oak, and a gaily painted and
well-appointed sail-boat besides a very light built, handsome skiff. The river
was less than a quarter of a mile in width and flowed past dark and still
and ever beautiful. On its opposite bank stood one of those old-fashioned
abodes with gable ends, small windows, and a low balustrade constructed
between the massive chimneys to protect those who ventured upon the roof
to look down the river. The house was large and square, and had once
been red, but was now a venerable gray color. Its shingles were all edged
with soft thick moss as green as a maple bud, and a few spears of grass had
fairly taken foothold in one of the chimney stacks. The old house had a
respectable look about it that was not to be mistaken for anything upstart.
It looked as if when the cry of the outrage at Lexington and Concord flew
over the land, an old man and half a dozen stalwart sons, each dressed in
homespun and shouldering a stout gun, might have sallied from its door and
hastened to join the army of Washington! This was, indeed, the case. The
grandsire and his sons, of the present proprietor, had done service in all the
battles that followed, and won a name for their children after them that an
English noble might be proud to transmit to his posterity.
The house had been enlarged as generations grew up, and L's and T's,
and long rambling sheds, not to mention the dairy, the cow-house, the cattle
shed, the great hay barn and the red grain barn, castles in size, had given
the premises a very imposing appearance. This aspect of farmer-like
thrift and competence, was sustained by fields and meadows and uplands
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that surrounded it on all sides, and by the flocks and herds that were visible
in the fine pasture lands.
The present occupant of this noble farm was a widow, who had an only
son. This young man, at the period of our tale, was just entering his nineteenth
year. He had inherited from his father and grandfather a noble name.
The blood of a revolutionary patriot and soldier flowed in his veins; and
when he was of age to appreciate this distinction, he felt prouder of it than
of a title coeval with the days of William the Conqueror. He was left an
orphan at the age of thirteen, and shortly afterwards went to Exeter Academy.
His mother, who indulged his every wish, destined him for the bar.
He finished his course at Exeter at the age of eighteen and returned home
to surprise his mother by informing her of his resolution not to enter the
University.
`I wish,' he said, in answer to her inquiries as to his motive in changing
his determination; `I wish to become a man of action and bold enterprise.
I wish to see the world and meet with adventure. I wish to encounter danger
and mingle with men of spirit and courage. I detest study, mother!—
and the idea of spending four years in Cambridge, and then three more in
a law-school is unendurable! I mean to enter the navy, and in seven years
time, instead of just taking out a license to defend thieves and burglars and
rogues of all dyes, I should be in command as a lieutenant perhaps of a brig
of war! In ten years I may be a captain, in fifteen in command of a sloop!
I have resolved to apply for a midshipman's warrant at once!'
Mrs. Winter had no will but her son's, and using her influence with the
member of Congress from the district, she applied for a warrant in the navy,
and after a delay of four or five months the document arrived duly franked
by the Secretary of the Navy, and was placed by Mrs. Winter in her delighted
son's hands.
During the interval, while waiting for the arrival of the warrant, Frank
Winter had been beguiling the time by falling in love. The maiden was
Grace Ellingwood, and the only daughter of Commodore Ellingwood, who
resided in the handsome mansion on the opposite side of the river. Frank
had not seen Grace before he went to Exeter, as the commodore had but
recently moved to the residence on Grove Lawn, which he now occupied.
Their first meeting was the very evening of his return from Exeter, and
before he had yet reached home to surprise his mother with his intention to
become a sailor instead of a lawyer; an intention all at once formed between
the bridge where he met Grace and the old farm house, the distance
between the two points being something less than a mile. He was on
horseback, and was just emerging from a shady part of the road to cross a
short bridge thrown across a rivulet that emptied into the river, when he observed
a young female in a boat beneath, intently engaged in fishing in a
dark deep pool that lay under a shady tree just before the brook wheeled into
the open river. She was not thirty feet below the bridge and not more
than twelve feet beneath him. He reined in his horse with surprise and
pleasure; for the young gentleman was very susceptible of beauty, and the
side face of the young girl was exquisite. He gazed upon her between the
posts of the railing, and the more he gazed the more fascinated he became.
Unconscious of being observed, for the gurgling and murmuring of the water
among the stones and pebbles deadened the stop of his horse's hoofs to
her ear, she sat in her little boat, bending gracefully over the water and
watching her sport with the intensity of a practised angler. The motion
of her arms and body as she would cast the fly, and then the movement of
her snow-white, dimpled hand, as she would play it upon the surface of the
water, were singularly graceful. Frank was bewildered. He sat still in his
saddle entranced. He recollected reading of nymphs of water brooks, and
he half conceived that she must be the naiad of this stream. She was
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attired in simple white, gathered in folds about her slender waist by a blue
belt; her brown hair was loose and flowing, the sun-boat which had shaded
it lying upon the seat behind her. By her side was a small basket in which
glittered two or three fine trout, and in a little box that looked like an old
gentleman's snuff, or tobacco box, she kept her bait and flies. Frank gazed
enraptured. He turned his every way to get a full sight of her features.
But he could only see the profile. This did not satisfy him, faultlesss as it
was. He made up his mind to dismount and throw a pebble into the pool
so that it should cause her to look up, when all at once she sprung to her
feet with a glad exclamation! the little rod in her hand bent like a coachwhip,
and was half drawn beneath the surface. Then it relaxed and up!
high out of the water leaped a large speckled trout, his scales flashing in the
light like gold. The hook was in his mouth for the line went into the air
with him. He disappeared again beneath the surface, and sought to hide
himself far distant under the roots of the tree. With graceful skill the lovely
girl managed her unruly game, suffering him to take what line he would;
when she saw that he was quiet she began to wind up again, gently at first
and then more rapidly; now letting him have a few feet again and now
stealing from him a dozen! In this manner she shortened her line and drew
him quietly to within a few feet of the surface, when all at once he began
to struggle. Her pole almost doubled with his efforts, and it took all her
strength to hold her grasp, while she each moment drew him, in spite of
his plunges, nearer and nearer to the boat. All the while she was merrily
laughing at her spirited contest, her cheeks flushed with the exercise, and
her figure bold and spirited in all its attitudes. One more vain effort to escape,
and the beautiful fish was captured and drawn into the boat.
`There sir, lie still and be good!' she said in a merry tone as she placed
him in her basket! `You are a rude fellow and would have been glad to
have pulled me into the water, I dare say.' Lay still, sirrah! I am not going
to take the hook out of your mouth which you have been so awkward
as to swallow with three inches of the line! You must go home so, and
Ben will take care of you!'
As she spoke she threw her hair back from her forehead, and exposed her
full countenance to the eyes of Frank, who had been watching her management
of the trout with the eye of an amateur, his attention divided between
the motions of the fish and the spirited movements of its fair captor. As
he now caught sight of her face, upturned to the bridge, he was entranced
with its faultless beauty. He had listened to her sweet playful voice as she
addressed her restless captive, and every note made his blood tingle with a
pleasure never before experienced by him; though young, handsome and
winning, he had oft listened to many a voice of sweetness and love, breathed
forth underneath the fire of glances full of tenderness and admiration.
As she raised her face she discovered the youth gazing down upon her
from the bridge. There was no possibility of her misunderstanding the
look of admiring surprise with which he regarded her. She returned his
gaze but for an instant as if to ascertain if she knew him, and then coloring
deeply, she laughed between embarrassment and annoyance, and catching
up her sun-hat, enveloped her face from his view. She then hurriedly
gathered up her line, caught up the light pair of oars, and the next moment
had shot out of the rivulet and was flying like a fairy bark across the open
river. The trees overhanging the bridge shut her from his sight, and dismounting,
he descended to the shore to watch her progress. She landed at
the foot of the water-oak, over-arching with its limbs the bathing house, and
taking up her basket of trout turned to ascend the walk to the house. As
she did so she lingered to look for a moment across the water. Frank waved
his hand with respectful gallantry. She did not notice the bold act; but
after she had proceeded up the walk a few steps, to a point where it entered
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a copse she stopped, turned half round, waved her hand slightly in acknowledgment
and disappeared!
He looked after her for several minutes; and when she did not reappear,
that he could not get a glimpse of her dress through the foliage, he sighed
very heavily as all young lovers do, and came to the very plausible conclusion
that he was in love, and that the capture of the trout which he had
witnessed was but a figure of his own captivity by the fair fisher!
He slowly turned from the river-side, and ascending the bank to the bridge
was about to remount his horse, when he saw one of his mother's hired
farm men advancing with a yoke of oxen.
`Ah, mister Frank, I am plaguey glad to see you back again,' said the
man touching the brim of his old white hat. `The old lady is looking for
you every pesky minute! You've growed tall since you were last home,
mister Frank!'
`Who was that beautiful young lady, Caleb?' asked the young heir of
`Meadow Farm,' without heeding his remark.
`Faith! I havn't seen any young lady, sir, 'cept the darter of the mill-right
I met away back. She's got red hair and a snaggle tooth!'
`You are a fool, Caleb! I mean her who who was in the boat?'
`I didn't see no purty gal in a boat, sir!'
`No, you didn't,' he answered, recollecting himself and speaking more
calmly. `But there was one here just now fishing in the pool in the brook
there beneath that sycamore!'
`Oh, aye!' answered Caleb with a look of intelligence. `Whoa! who-o-oh!
ye old torments! can't ye keep quiet without hookin' one anuther?' and inflicting
a kick upon one of his oxen, and hitting the other over the head with
his goad he added, `was it a green skift she was in?'
`Yes.'
`Had she curly hair jist the color of a hazel-nut in the sunshine?'
`Precisely.'
`Had she eyes the color of her hair, only with a diamond sparklin' rite in
the middle of each?'
`Yes.'
`Did her hand look like—like butter cream?'
`Yes. Who is she?' he demanded laughing.
`Wall, prehaps I can guess! Did she smile just as you've seen the moonlight
glimpse over the water when the wind stirred it the softest bit in the
world?'
`Who is she, Caleb?'
`Wall, did she wear a white gownd, master Frank?' asked the poetical
Caleb.
`Yes, man of words! Do you know anything of her?'
`Guess I do, mister Frank!' answered Caleb, crossing one foot over the
other, and resting his chin easily on his goad. `Do you see that are big
house on the t'other side o' the water?'
`Grove Lawn! Yes. She lives there! I knew it! I was satisfied she
could belong nowhere else in this vicinity. Besides, I saw her land on the
ground and proceed towards the house.
`She lives there with her father?'
`And who is he? My mother wrote me that a naval officer of rank had
taken the house. `Who is he?'
`Commodore Ellingwood, they call him. He is a fine old bluff man,—
swears by the main top—has a spey-glass in his buffalo—
`Buffalo?'
`Cupalo—I never can get the hanged thing right! He smokes a Turk's
pipe and sleeps in a bannock swung between two posts instead of in a bed.'
`A hammock you mean, Caleb.'
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`Wall, its tantamount to the same thing. He never rides, but always
sails. If he goes to Portsmouth to Church he must go in his boat. He's
got a old maid sister lives with him and this darter, and old Ben, a double-fisted
tar as calls himself his vallyshamy, and that's all the family, 'cept two
hired gals and a hired man, and a shaggy Newfounlan' dog as is always with
the Commydore, and a little Injun Hottentot boy, the color o' lasses, he
brought home with him from the other eend o' the airth!'
`And this young lady? Does she often sail alone?'
`She is just like a duck to love the water, Mister Frank! I never go by
here of a pleasant arternoon, I don't see her a fishin' or rowin' or swimmin!'
`Swimming?'
`Lor yes! she swims like a mermaid! She has a long brownish kind o'
gown she wears, and I've seen her walk strait into the water jist as if she
was goin down to be baptised, and then swim out and round, and the New-foundland
dog with her, and splash the water, and she would laugh jist like
a whole tree full o' robins, it was music to hear her! Then she didn't
know I was watching her through the trees; coz she generally takes just at
twilight to play in the water, when people don't pass along this lone road
much. I reckon she is a chip o' the old block!'
`Does he swim?'
`No, I guess he's afraid he'd take in water. They say he is mity fond o'
brandy, and I guess he is by the color o' his nose, and the funny way he
has lookin' out o' his eyes.'
`Does he have many visitors?' nervously inquired Frank, who began to
think among young officers the lovely fisher might have some favored youth.
`Not many, and them's all captins and lieutenants and sich like. They
say he don't let any one visit him that can't tell every rope in the ship from
the stern railin' to the quarter deck jib-boom!'
`I don't think there are such ropes in a ship, Caleb,' laughingly said Frank;
who, born within two miles of a naval station, was pretty well versed in such
matters.
`Wall, p'raps thar beant, it's only what they tell!' said Caleb, a little discomfited.
`Gee-up! hull-line! why doan't you hull-line, I tell ye! Good
night, mister Frank. It's getting on to sort o' laterish, and I've got to haul
a drag o' stun back to the farm afore dark!'
Thus speaking, Caleb drove his oxen forward across the bridge, while
Frank rode on homeward, not at a fast pace like one long absent, but flinging
the reins over his horse's neck he let him walk along the wooded road
which led toward the homestead of Meadow Farm. It was in this ride from
the bridge homeward that he resolved to become a midshipman! Love sent
law by the board, and Vattel and Bowditch were to take the place of Coke
and Blackstone! How determinedly, on reaching home, he carried this
resolution into effect this has already been seen.
The interval of five months, which elapsed between the application for
his warrant and its reception, was passed in love's young dream! How he
became acquainted with the fair angler would, if fairly narrated, make a romance
in itself. He took to angling and boating, and was always in the
vicinity of her well known haunts. At length one day, as he was lying on
his oars under the shade of an elm waiting for her to come to the river to
row, with the internal resolution that he would boldly approach her boat, he
saw her advancing. The next moment she was skimming the water in her
light bark. Her conscious look and air betrayed her knowledge, or at least
her suspicion that she was observed by the handsome youth, whom she had
first seen on the bridge, and for the last three days had observed rambling
the shore, fishing in the brook, or boating alone upon the river.
Frank was about to emerge from his covert and pull alongside, and boldly
declare his desire to become acquainted with her, when one of the
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tholepins in her boat broke, and one of her oars slipped into the river! In an
incredibly brief space of time Frank was at hand, rejoicing at the happy
accident in his heart. He recovered the oar and placed it blushing and
embarrassed in her hands! From this moment an acquaintance began among
them, which deepened into mutual love. Their interviews were upon the
water, or occasionally they would land and walk together in the sweet solitudes
along the river bank. At length the warrant arrived, and with it an
order to join the corvette then at anchor in Portsmouth harbor and ready
for sea. Frank had at once reported himself to the commander, and then
returned home to get ready with every possible despatch; for he was ordered
to be on board as soon after hearing three signal guns as he could
reach the vessel. The report, therefore, of the cannon which were fired
from the corvette, were heard with a deeper emotion than curiosity, both at
Grove Lawn and Meadow Farm.
CHAPTER II.
The old Commodore at home. Ben and his Hindoo Pupil. A rare
scheme for teaching the boy the King's English. The Signal
Gun's effect upon those interested. The Parting. The Corvette
leaves Port. Frank's spirit resents Authority.
Frank Winter, the embryo Midshipman, was on his way from his house
to his boat, for the purpose of crossing the river to take his usual twilight
trysting with the lovely daughter of the old Commodore, when the report
of the first heavy gun from the corvette fell upon his ear. He started with
trembling suspicion and listened for another! Perhaps, he thought, it is not
from my ship! Another followed, and then a third, and he knew that the
time had come when he must part from Grace Ellingwood! He had anticipated
longer delay, at least a week, and his disappointment at suddenly
hearing the signal summoning him to duty was proportionably great. But
Frank was not a person to give way to annoyances. He was light-hearted
and buoyant, and he reflected that if he was called now to part from Grace,
he would the sooner return to her an officer, and sooner claim her as his
bride. He hastened forward to the place where he kept his boat, threw
himself into it, and swiftly crossed to the foot of the lawn. Mrs. Winter
had also heard the signal, and the heavy reports fell upon her ear like a knell.
She felt that she might be parting on that night from her only son forever.
She watered with her involuntary tears the clothes she was packing in her
trunks and chest, and placing in it a Bible, on which, with trembling fingers,
she wrote his name and her own beneath it. She knelt over it, and
prayed that the Spirit of God might accompany that blessed word to the
conversion of her thoughtless boy.
Grace was stranding pensively in the trellised portico of her father's house,
looking towards the river, shining glimpses of which she could get through
the trees, and thinking whether, as it was so late, Francis would come that
night. In the open doorway, behind, sat the commodore smoking a Turkish
pipe; the bowl of crystal set upon a silver stand, and the tube, which
was wound with scarlet silk, was several feet in length. At the side of the
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pipe-bowl, which was set upon the floor, full two yards off from the smoke,
was the East Indian lad already spoken of by Caleb. He was a slender,
pliant boy, with a soft skin, yellow as gold, and large expressive eyes, black
as a rattle-snake's. His hair, which was black as a raven's, was long and
braided down his back in two braids. He wore ear-rings and bracelets of
gold upon his wrists. His costume was a pair of white Oriental drawers,
gathered at the ancle, a green jacket, yellow slippers and yellow turban. He
sat like a statue save that at intervals, with a long silver pin which he held
in his hand, he would stir the ignited tobacco in the bowl of his master's pipe.
The commodore, who was a hale, sailor like old man, with a Bardolphian
nose and a cherry cheek, which promised, if a needle were let into it, to
let out rich flavored fourth proof brandy, was wrapped in a Chinese dressing
gown, and wore white drilling pantaloons, cut loose and large at the bottom,
a white Valencia vest garnished with the navy button, and a black silk handkerchief,
knotted once in front, the ends hanging down in regular man-of-war
fashion.
`Gazy, darling, what are you looking out so sharp over the bows for, as
if you were looking for land through a George's Bank fog?'
`I was merely looking father!' answered the lovely watcher with a deep
blush.
`You will hurt your sweet eyes, girl! It is near four bells in the dog-watch,
and it's time light sail were taken in and the hatches down! Come,
Ben, close the windows and doors, and pipe hammocks down!'
`Yes, your honor,' answered an old tar of fifty or more years, with a gray
head, and a huge pair of black and gray whiskers, dressed in a blue jacket
with a double row of navy buttons on each wing, white duck trowsers as
wide as a flannel petticoat, a shirt faced with blue, and adorned with the
anchor worked in the blue ground, and a black handkerchief knotted about
his neck after the fashion of the commodore's, only that the ends of Ben's
were passed through a dolphin's ring. Ben wore pumps with large flaunting
bows of black ribbon, and on his hands, the backs of which were covered
with strange figures in blue ink, were two gold rings; one plain, the
other representing two hearts fastened together by a true love knot.
`What o'clock is it, Ben?'
`Most four bells your honor,' answered Ben, pulling at his forelock.
`Shall I go and strike 'em before I close the hatches?'
`Go, Ben!' answered the commodore, nodding with familiar dignity.
The old tar made his usual obeisance and left the hall with a rolling gait,
like a lumber brig, broad in the beam, making way before a norther. In a
moment after, four loud strokes of a ship's bell, swung over the kitchen,
announced to the household that it was eight o'clock!
`Count them bells you little rascal!' cried the commodore to the lad.
`Wunny, fivy forty!'
`Wunny, fivy, forty, you little Hindoo!' repeated the commodore with a
lurking smile. `Begin and try again. One!'
`Wunny.'
`One—wun!'
`Wun, wunny, wun!'
`Vast there! take a round turn! let us try another. Two!'
`Dooy,' answered the little Hindoo, in his gentle voice.
`Dooy! cut your y's adrift and bring up short so! two!'
`Doo'
`That's a scholar. Three!'
`Dee,'
`Dee, no! Three!'
`Me no speak him, massy!'
`Yes you can! try again!'
`Dreey!'
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`Cast off your y's, and don't sing it as if I was teaching you to boxhaul a
methodist tune. Three!'
`Dree!'
`That is better! You'll improve, Jack, as you get used to the soundings!'
`Please yer honor, he wants his jaw-tackle overhauled a bit and reset with
English sarvings,' said Ben respectfully. `It stands to reason he shouldn't
speak Christian.'
`You are right, Ben; Jack!'
`Sar, massy!'
`Have you got your catechism?'
`Yis, massy.'
`Please yer honor, I have been teaching him the log marks these, last
seven Sundays, and if he don't know 'em it's none o' my fault, yer honor.
He's a curous craft to navigate through Christian larnin', commodore. I
axed him who made him, and he answers me Bug-boo!'
`Let us try him. Jack!'
`Massa Commydory.'
`Do you know you are a little heathen?'
`Yis, massy,' answered the lad in a musical tone of voice, and with exceeding
simplicity.
`Do you know I took you off the beach where your wicked mother left
you tied to be eaten up by a great alligator that was coming out of the water
after you? Do you know that, Jack?'
`Yis massy, I know him!'
`Did'nt I take you aboard my ship, and havn't I treated you as if you
were a Yankee born boy?'
`Yes, me Yanky—me!'
`Avast there, younker, not quite!' interposed Ben, indignantly.
`He means, Ben, he would like to be if he hadn't such a saflron hide.
He can't mean he is one, Ben!'
`Perhaps not your honor! But I likes to have every thing ship-shape, it
stand to reason I should, yer honor!'
`Well, Jack, as I've done all this for you, you ought to study your catechism,
coz I mean to make a Christian of you!'
`Yis, I learn him. Bug-boo no makee me—Godee make me!'
`Ben!'
`Your honor!'
`What can be done to keep him from sing-singing all his words at the end
this way?'
`I don't know yer honor 'cept we rig a lanyard to his tongue, and one
hold the end of it behind, and when he gets the word all out to the proper
eend, give a sharp twitch afore he lets off the slack of the sing-song! It
stands to reason it'll help him, yer honor!'
`That's a capital notion, Ben. But it'll slip off his tongue, so it better be
reaved through the bights of his ear-rings, and you hold both lines astern.
When he gets the word fairly out, you can fetch him up with a round turn
before he begins to pay off with the sing-singy!'
`Shall I go and fetch a lanyard, yer honor?'
`Get it ready for to-morrow, and then we'll see if we can't teach him
honest English, without this — sing-singy! Now close the hatches and
shut the dead lights. Come in Gazy, dear! You'll get a cold staying on
deck there so late?'
`In a moment, father!' answered Grace, who had been earnestly watching
the river, for she thought she saw Frank's boat upon it; but it proved
to be a salmon fisher's. She was about to turn away disappointed, when
upon her ears also fell the distant report of the corvette's guns! She knew
that they were the signal for the officers to be on board and for getting
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underweigh. Her heart failed within her, and the color left her cheeks. The
time of parting with him to whom she had surrendered her young heart
had arrived. Could he have gone! Would he leave without seeing her?
No. The thought was rejected the instant it passed across her mind. The
commodore had put down the tube of his pipe and stepped upon the portico
to see what detained his child, when the guns reached his ear.
`There go three 32's,' he said with animation. `It is the signal for the
Corvette in the harbor, Ben, to get underweigh. The tide will serve at
twelve, when she will tow down with it to sea!'
`Where is she bound, father,' asked Grace, for this Frank did not know.'
`Her orders are secret, girl. But I think I can guess. She sails for the
Gulf of Mexico on a special cruise.'
`And when will she return, sir?' she asked anxiously, and yet endeavoring
to conceal the deep interest she felt in her absence.
`Perhaps in four months; perhaps she may be ordered to the Mediterranean
afterwards, and not to be here again for three years. She is a fine vessel,
Ben.'
`Yes, your honor. I was in her one cruise, yer honor remembers. She
has a fine set of swabs, and her skipper is a gentleman and a sailor!'
`Douse the gentleman part, Ben. Sailor means every thing. The rest
only weakens it and leaves room for leaks.'
`Yer honor is right,” answered Ben, with a pull at his waistband; for neither
Ben nor the commodore used the effeminate support of suspenders.
At this moment the quick eyes of Grace caught sight of her lover's boat,
gliding upon the shadowy river, and she involuntarily started to meet him.
`Where are you steering now, Gracy?' asked the commodore.
`No—no where, sir!'
`Well, let us inboard and give Ben a chance to make all fast.'
`In one minute, sir! Go in, dear father, I will come in by and by. I
wish to walk a little.'
`Well, child, keep a short watch and don't get off soundings, for there
are cruisers about here, said the fond old man, who was ruled wholly by his
daughter's wishes. He then took Ben's arm, and the two went rolling as if
walking a quarter deck in a gale, into the hall.
As soon as they disappeared, Grace flew along the avenue towards the
water side, and met Frank as he came rapidly up the path.
`Dearest Grace! The signal has been fired and I hasten to take leave of
you!'
`I heard it, Frank, and it went to my very heart!' she said, suffering him
to take and press her hand to his lips, while he enfolded her waist with his
arm. They stood a moment in silence, each for a while too deeply moved
to speak. They were a noble pair. His manly form, a head taller than
hers, bending over her in tenderness and with eyes of love; she half shrinking
from, yet suffering his embrace, with a countenance of gentle sorrow;
her pale cheek and eyes suffused with tears, speaking cloquently her love
and grief! He was now within a few days of his nineteenth year, she just
entering upon her eighteenth: in age nearly equal, in heart one!
The twilight deepened; time flew; each moment became precious to
both; yet neither could find language to open the full fountain of thoughts
that rushed to their lips. Both wished to say so much that neither could
utter a word! Language seemed incompetent. Silently Frank drew her
to his heart, and again and again pressed kisses upon her pure brow.
`Grace, must we part! Is the hour—the moment of our separation at
hand? I cannot realise it!'
`We shall meet again, dear Frank; she said, rallying; `you will write me
often, when you write to your mother?'
`Yes, Grace.'
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`I will answer your letters faithfully!'
`You are too kind. But I fear you will not always remember me, Grace.
I may be very absent. Many officers visit your father; you know several
intimately; I am but a midshipman! You will forget me. You will—'
`Frank, if I thought you believed what you utter, I should deeply grieve!
You know me better than to harbor a thought so unworthy. You, dear
Frank, are the first who unfolded to me the wealth of love and joy in my
own heart. To you those treasures have been given, and yours they shall
ever be!'
`I did not doubt, dearest Grace. I only wished my confidence in you
confirmed; for it is happiness to hear you say that I am dear to you! But
your father, the commodore! I fear he will, if he discovers your attachment
to me, forbid it. You know since the time he saw us walking together,
and asked you who I was, and you told him how we had first met and
spoken, that he forbade you to speak to me saying that you should have no
acquaintances who were not in the navy!'
`But he said also, in his blunt way, when I told him you were waiting
for a warrant, `let him get into the navy first, girl, and let us see what he is
made of!'
`Does he suspect our attachment?'
`No. Though I will not conceal from you that he knows I have met you
more than once. Ben has seen us together, and he feels it his duty, as he
says, to report every thing in sight to the commodore! He is in the cupola
or `aloft,' as he terms it, half his time, looking out as if he was at sea, and
I am confident he has reported `all strange craft,' she added, slightly smiling.
`I have noticed lately my father throws out hints and words that show
he suspects something. But he has not spoken with me about it; but I
have no doubt satisfies himself with keeping old Ben on the look-out to
watch me!'
`I fear another obstacle, Grace! The commodore is very wealthy, and
prides himself upon his aristocracy, being related to some of the best English
famleis among the nobility. I fear even if I should return a lieutenant,
if this could be, that I should be refused your hand!'
`What family is nobler than his, whose fathers aided in achieving the liberties
of the country. Let us not speak of such things, Frank. Let us
both hope!'
`Hope shall be my watchword! I will not let a doubt darken the bright
prospect in the future. Now, dear Grace, one embrace and I must leave you!'
The sweet parting of the lovers was delayed and lingering still and still
delayed, till the voice of Ben was heard hailing from the lawn.
`Miss Grace, ahoy! Where about's in the offing are you cruising?' The
commodore says you must wear ship and put back under convoy!'
`One last embrace! Farewell.'
`Farewell!
`God bless you, Grace!'
`God protect you, Frank!'
The next moment the lover was in his boat, shooting across the starry
water, and looking back as he receded from the shore to catch a last glimpse
of her from whom he had so bitterly torn himself. He soon reached the
landing-place at the Farm, and walked towards the house. But more than
once the thought tempted him, that as he had a competence, there was no
need he should fly from Grace, to enter upon a profession. He would resign
his warrant, remain on shore and pass his days in her sweet society.
But then his pride came to his aid, his high spirit resented the suggestion:
`No. I will join my ship! I will enter upon the career of honor before
me! I will bear up under this separation, and try to live over the past in
memory. If I should now repent and turn back, she would scorn me! her
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high spirit would lead her to look upon me with contempt. Much as she
loves me, she would rather I should be absent from her than that I should
remain at home in inglorious ease, performing nothing to gain her esteem
or the homage of men. No! I will go forward. Her image shall go with
me to alleviate the interval of our separation! No, Grace, I will do nothing
that would render me unworthy of you. From some words of caution she
let fall as we parted, I know she thinks me a little unsteady and irresolute.
I will not confirm this idea by any act of folly now.'
As he came to this determination he reached his mother's house. Here
a second parting, less tender, but equally sad, took place. In a few minutes
afterwards, the young midshipman was in a boat with his baggage, on his
way down the river to join his ship, which was two miles distant. Already,
as he approached her, he heard the boatswain's whistle piping `anchor up,'
and when he reached the side, he found her already in motion. Three
boats were out ahead, filled with men, who had begun to tow her with the
turning tide. Frank got on deck and reported himself to the first lieutenant,
whom he saw standing upon a gun near the gangway.
`Glad to see you on board at last, sir,' said the officer. `I feared you would
be left behind. `Get your things below, and then come on deck, and I will
have you messed and shown your duty!' Frank did not like the authoritative
tone of the officer, but he obeyed without any reply.
He was soon upon deck again, after getting his things below, and finding
that he was not immediately called upon to do anything, he leaned over the
hammock netting and gazed towards the town, which was fast receding in
the distance. His thoughts were of Grace, and he could not prevent a sigh
or two escaping him, as he thought how long it would be before he should
behold her again. She, at the same time, having stolen from her chamber,
was in the cupola watching the distant ship through the spy-glass, her faint
outline, as she passed out of the harbor, being just visible through the indistinctness
of night.
The corvette, after getting near the light, began to feel a light air, when
the boats were called alongside, and the topsails and top-gallant-sails loosed.
The breeze strengthened, and royal after royal was unfolded above the top-gallant-sails,
the spanker and jibs were set, and with the wind four points
free, the ship of war went dashing over the curling waves at the rate of
seven knots.
Frank's manly and prepossessing appearance, his fine face, and generous
spirit, which spoke in every lineament, at once won him the confidence of
his fellow officers. He soon became familiar with his duties, and by the
time the corvette reached Vera Cruz, whither she was bound, he was scarcely
inferior to any of the midshipmen on board, in knowledge of the peculiar
service required of him. There was, however, one draw-back in his
character to success as an officer, where to command and obey have one
and the same meaning. Accustomed from boyhood to indulgence from his
money, to have his own will and way, and at Exeter seldom suffering himself
to be controled by his preceptors without showing quickness of spirit,
he was not well pleased with the manner in which he found himself addressed
by the lieutenants and ordered by the commander. He had not
been five days from harbor, before he found himself spoken to in a manner
that on shore he would have resented as an insult to his age, character and
standing in society. But here he felt compelled to submission, and did submit,
but with wounded feelings and a sense of deep resentment. In a word,
Frank soon learned that he was too high spirited, too quick and sensitive to
obey! The very idea had in it something degrading to his mind; and he
determined, that if the other midshipmen submitted to it he would not. He
expressed himself very freely upon the subject to one of his messmates,
one evening, as the corvette lay at the Sacrificios, waiting for a messenger
to return from Mexico.
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`It is an outrage,' said Frank, indignantly speaking to Barton Ellis, a midshipman
older than himself, and whose face, handsome though it was, showed
the profligacy of his habits: `it is an outrage upon the feelings of a gentleman,
to be spoken to in the way Lieutenant —, spoke to you this
morning because you gave a wrong order, when the fault was his own, for
he stutters so no man can tell what he means to say!'
`Oh, Frank, I've got used to it.'
`I have not, nor shall I very soon, without degrading every noble sentiment.
I have been thrice damned by the officers for blunders. How could
I help them? Besides, if I could, what right has one gentleman to damnyour-eyes,
without being personally responsible for his words. I would not
certainly put up with it ashore, and I will do no more on board a ship.'
`You will find you'll have to and more than this,' answered Ellis, with a
smile and a shrug of the shoulder.
`I will not,' answered Frank, very positively. If I had considered, in
coming into the Navy, that I was to sacrifice my position as a gentleman
and young man of fortune, I would never have crossed the gang-way of this
or any other ship.'
`Well, it can't be helped, Frank. 'Tis hard I confess! I found it so
when I first mounted my dirk. I am from Virginia, and can as ill brook an
insult as you! But they don't look at it in that light here, and so I have
learned to put my dignity in my pocket; and when a luff damus me I damn
a sailor, and so pass the compliment. I made old Commander — laugh
once in that way. He called me on the quarter deck, and cursed me for a
lubber, because I let go a weather-earing to save being knocked from the
yard. I turned round and cursed a man who was quietly reeving a rope
through a dead-eye block. `What was that for, sir?' says old —. `I
was only passing along the compliment, sir,' says I. He laughed till his
sides shook, and after that didn'nt swear any more at me!'
`You take it lightly, Ellis. As for me, I am resolved not to submit to another
insult. Ever officer who speaks to me in a manner unworthy a gentleman,
I will hold responsible for it on shore!'
Thus speaking, Frank with a cheek burning from a sense of wounded
pride, turned and walked away.
`Winter will get himself into trouble if he follows that notion he has in
his head,' said Ellis to another midshipman, who had overheard what had
been said. `He is right in theory, but it's a theory that he'll find confounded
hard to practise on the deck of a ship of war.'
CHAPTER III.
The Cruise of the Corvette. The Duel. The Commodore and
his `Familiar.' The arrival in Port. The Result.
The corvette sailed from Vera Cruz, and touching at Havanna, proceeded
thence to Gibraltar. She cruised in the Mediterranean for six months—
proceeding to Smyrna and Constantinople. At length, after a year's absence,
she returned home to the United States—entering the Boston harbor.
The morning but one after her arrival in port, the Commodore after
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opening his Boston paper and glancing at the ship and naval news, said,
turning to Ben who stood behind his chair:
`So, Ben, the corvette Concord has returned from her cruise up the
straits!'
`Indeed yer honor,' responded Ben with a hitch at his waistband, and
changing his quid from larboard to starboard. `Well it stands to reason
she should be in by this time!'
`Yes, Ben, she reached Boston day before yesterday; all hands well.
But what is that?'
`We are sorry to add that a duel took place between Lieutenant Fordley
and Midshipman Winter, just before the corvette left Mahon, in which
the former was dangerously wounded. A court-martial will probably set
upon the affair.'
`And the young scape-grace ought to be dismissed from the service,'
said the Commodore rashly. Duels are becoming too common in the navy.
Fordley deserved to be wounded for meeting a middy!'
`Some o' the middies, yer honor, look upon themselves as much gentlemen
as the luffs.'
`I know they do Ben, and the leftenants treat them as if they were.
There is no rank in a man-of-war but the ship's rank, and if a middy were
a lord he is but a middy, and I'd d—n his eyes as soon as I would yours,
Ben!'
`Yes, yer honor, it stan's to reason you should.'
`Winter—Winter! It seems to me I've heard of that name, Ben.'
`Yes, yer honor it stan's to reason you have. The widder that lives right
abeam on the larboard bank o' the river—her name's Winter.'
`So it is—and she had a son who went into the navy, so Gracy told me.'
`Yes yer honor; he sailed in the corvette.'
`Then this is he. Fine doings! a midshipman of one year, and shooting
his superior officer in a duel. I hope I may set on that court-martial!'
`It stands to reason yer honor should!'
`Avast there Ben! a'nt this the same sail you saw cruising about here,
sometimes alone and sometimes in company with little Grace?' demanded
the old Commodore repulsing his sea-veteran.
`It's the same craft, yer honor!'
`You told me at the time he'd sheered off and I need'nt fear his falling in
with my little craft any more.'
`Yes yer honor; it was after he'd sailed I told you.'
`Where is Gracy, Ben?'
`She is sittin' in the main cabin window overhauling a printed log-book,
yer honor.' By which, Ben who had given a ship's name to every part of
the mansion, meant to say, Grace was seated in the parlor window reading.
`Tell her to bear down this way, I want to speak to her.'
`Aye, aye, yer honor; but please yer honor, if you are going to communicate
any thing about this middy, just touch upon it soft, yer honor; coz I
know she has a list that way that'll set both pumps agoin' if she's crowded
hard.'
`I guessed it Ben, I guessed it long ago. But she's forgot him by this
time, Ben. Tell her to come along side. This'll show her what colors
he sails under.'
`Aye, Sir.'
The Commodore who was seated in the hall in a leathern arm-chair, with
his left foot wrapped in flannel and gently resting upon a cricket, turned
his attention again to the newspaper.
`Tell father I will be with him in a moment Ben,' said Grace, without
lifting her eyes from the page. One year had passed, and during that time
the blooming girl had far progressed into the loveliness of the woman. She
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was a shade taller, and a thought paler, and with an air more tranquil, a
manner fuller of repose and dignity. Love ripens rapidly, not only the
heart and mind, but the person of a young girl She was now surpassing
fair. Her tresses no longer flowed in her neck, but were gathered in a
comb and her smooth hair parted upon her pure brow gave a tone of serene
beauty to the graceful countenance of her face. Her rich hazel eyes
were brighter, larger and more expressive of feeling and emotion; and the
beautiful mouth was no less expressive than the eye, of the thoughts that
moved her soul.
Her affection for the absent lover, instead of decreasing as he had feared,
grew with the lapse of time. She had received four letters from him in the
interval—letters breathing a devotion as deep and artlent as her own. Frank
could not write, however, even to Grace, without expressing in warm language
his surprise at discovering the discourtesy with which he, merely because
his rank on ship-board was inferior, had to submit to from the tempers,
caprices or petty malice of superior officers. Grace sighed on recognising
the existence on ship-board, of this high spirit of insubordination—
to call it by no harsher term—which she had before witnessed as a trait in
his character on shore. In her replies she gently alluded to the subject,
and delicately drew a just comparison between the position of an individual
in a ship of war, and at home; and showing conclusively the necessity
of disipline, of authority to control, of a power to command and elicit obedience.
To these arguments Frank assented in his judgement, but his spirit
rose against the practice. Grace had received her letters through Mrs.
Winter, whom she occasionally visited. This lady was not long in discovering
her attachment to her son, and her feelings become deeply interested
in the lovely girl, with whom she loved to sit and talk of him, sure of having
a fond and attentive listener.
`Grace, daughter, come along side door and let me speak with ye,' said
the commodore, as she entered the hall.
`What do you desire dear father,' said she laying her hand upon his forehead
with sweet affection. Her manner touched him. He looked kindly
upon her, then shook his head and glanced at Ben and then at the Gazette.
`Would you Ben?'
`Better not, yer honor,' said Ben impressively.
Well—I wont! You're a good girl, Grace. So I wont hurt your feelings,
would you Ben?'
`It stands to reason you wouldn't, commodore,' answered Ben stoutly.
`No I'm—
`Dont swear, commodore,' interposed Ben quickly.
`I wont, Ben!
`Father, what is this you had to tell me. Your countenance seemed severe
when I came in!'
`Severe! I never was severe to you in my life, my child!' he said smilingly
and drawing her towards him.
`It stands to reason yer honor never was!' answered Ben.
`Ben you have too much hawser running out your bow port,' said the
commodore.
`I am stopped yer honor,' answered Ben abashed.
`Ben, I wish you would go down to the river side and see if my boat is
dry enough for me to take a row this morning.'
`I will, marm,' answered the old tar, and making his obedience to the
commodore by pulling his fore-top, and to Grace by a scrape of his foot, disappeared.
`Father, now let me know why you sent for me?'
`Well girl, there is no resisting you. But I dont want to hurt your feelings.
But I always had and so had Ben, a kind of suspicion that you had a
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sort of liking for that chap I caught baiting your hook one morning—his
name was Winter.' As the commodore spoke he watched her countenance;
and at the confusion he observed, looked sad and gravely smiled
upon her while he added:
`I said nothing at the time, knowing you were a sensible girl and knew a
shark from a lampreel. But Ben says—
`I do not care to hear what Ben says, sir.'
`Well, then let Ben alone. The chap went to sea and there was an end
of it!'
`But you said, sir, if he went with the navy, I might then number him
among my acquaintances.'
`No Gracy, I said let him go into the navy if he will, and let us see how
he turns out! Well, he's gone it seems and has turned out!.
`How do you mean father?' she asked, turning pale at his emphatic
words.
`I mean that he has fought a duel with his superior officer, and that he
bids fair to have a court-martial set upon him before many days are over
his head. The corvette arrived two days ago in Boston harbor. There is
the paper containing the news, and of young Winter's duel. But Lord!
What is the matter with the child! Ben! Jack! Why, Gracy, you a'nt going
to faint are you! Dont look so wild! Ben, I say! Jack you infernal Hindoo!
Ben, ahead here all of you with every thing set!'
And the alarmed parent began to thump the floor with his cane and to
call for help, while he supported on one arm poor Grace, who with a face
like marble, her eyes wildly fixed on the paragraph he had placed before
her, had sunk almost insensible by his side.
Ben and Hindoo Jack arrived at the the same moment by different doors.
`Water, Ben! Gazy is knocked on her beam-ends by this confounded
news! You was right Ben for me not to say any thing to her.'
`It stands to reason I was, yer honor,' cried Ben as he brought the pitcher
of water from the side-board. `Shall I dowse it over, commodore?' and
the pitcher was held above her head.
`Avast a bit, Ben! she rights a little.'
`I'm better, father,' said Grace making an effort to rcover herself.
`Ah, poor Gracy, I see how it is! That younker has been cruising about
my little convoy with some success. You were in the right Ben.'
`I know'd the current set that way, yer honor.'
`Father, let me retire to my room.'
`You are better now. Let me ask you one kindly meant question. Do
you care a spark's flitter for this young scamp?'
`If you mean Francis Winter—I freely acknowledge sir, that I am deeply
interested in his welfare. We became friends, and I saw in him much
to like. This intelligence has caused me great pain.'
`Well, you see now that he is unworthy of you. He has shot his superior
officer in a duel and will be broke by a court-martial. If he was my son
I would disinherit him!'
`Perhaps, sir, he was greatly provoked. The officer may have been most
to blame.'
`I dont like this defence of the scape-grace,' said the commodore warmly.
`If you liked him once for his good qualities, I wish you to dislike him now
for his bad ones!'
`It stands to reason she should, yer honor.'
`Ben your opinion wasn't asked.'
`It stands to reason it wasn't, yer honor,' responded Ben with a bow and
a respectful pull at his fore-top.
`You will not think of him any more, Grace?'
`I regret his conduct, father; but I think he will be proved to have been
he east offender.'
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`We shall hear particulars soon. If I had suspected this matter had taken
such hold of Gracy, I should have gone to sea with you before he
should have had an opportunity of making your acquaintance. Besides,
Gracy, dear, he is not one high enough for you to look to. He is but a
farmer's son—with but a fifth of your fortune. Your blood is among the
best in the land. In a word, girl,' said the commodore with a blunt ahruptness,
`do you love this young man?'
`I do father,' she answered blushing, yet in a firm voice,
`And has he dared to speak to you upon the subject?' he continued severely,
for her open confession surprised and displeased him.
`Our attachment, father, I believe to be mutual. For my sake he abandoned
the bar to which he was destined, and entered the navy, that as an
officer he might find favor in your eyes.'
`And a pretty confounded sort of favor he has found in my eyes! Shooting
his superior officer, the very first news we have of him.'
`I am confident he was provoked to it, sir,' said Grace with warmth and
earnestuess. He is incapable of any act, base or unworthy.'
`Ti—ti! Studden-sails out on both sides, and sky-scrapers aloft! This
looks squally for us, Ben!' said the commodore, gravely glancing over his
shoulder at his “vally.”
`It does, yer honor,' answered Ben with a gravity that equalled his master's;
`a reg'lar Norther!'
Grace too much accustomed to the signals interchanged between her father
and Ben, paid no attention to these remarks. Her thoughts were upon
Frank and his rash conduct.
`I feared it,' she said in her own heart. `I feared something like this
from his proud and independent spirit. And he is now probably under arrest!
My heart bleeds for him! How shall I hear from him? How shall I
learn all? My father will not favor me, but rather withhold any further intelligence.
I must seem to be indifferent, to be able to act without being
watched.' Her father's voice interrupted her thoughts.
`Grace,' he said mildly, `I know you too well to believe you would place
your affections upon any one unworthy of you. You may have taken a liking
to this young man, thinking him worthy. Now that you see that he
has proved himself the reverse, I am prepared to see you act with becoming
pride and sense, and respect for your own character.'
`Commodore that's as good as a quarter-deck speech. There's no
chance for slipping a cable there, or skulking under hatches.'
Silence, Ben!'
`I does, yer honor,' and coolly reaching round the old man's chair, he quietly
discharged his tobacco spittle into a spitoon which the commodore and
he used in common.
`If he has proved unworthy of my friendship, father, (she would have
said love,) I shall try to think no more of him.' Her voice trembled and
tears danced tremulously in her beautiful hazel eyes.
`That's a good girl. You shall go to Boston with me in a few days; a
short cruise will help you to forget him, dont you think so Ben.'
`It stands to reason, yer honor,' responded Ben promptly; and Ben's
larboard eye (for the starboard was closed) glistened with the idea of an
overboard cruise to the metropolis.
`Well Gracy, let the matter drop. We won't speak of it any more.'
`Thank you, sir; you are very kind dear father.' As she spoke she embraced
him, and left him to take that solitude which her feelings coveted.
`She's a nice craft, Ben,' said the commodore, glancing after his daughter
with a smiling eye of affection; `a nice little craft as a father's eye
would like to look upon him.'
`Trim and well-stowed, yer honor. Every thing about her set snug and
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a-taunts, firm deck to track; she rounds in the bows like a duck, and on a
wind—'
`What the devil, Ben! are you making my daughter out to be a reg'lar
fore and after, with deck and spars!'
`It stands to reason, commodore, I al'ays likens a handsome craft to a
pretty woman, and a pretty woman al'ays 'minds me of a tight clipper, yer
honor,' answered Ben stoutly.
`Well, Ben there is some resemblance that's the truth, especially a young
woman.'
`With white canvass spread, and royals and topmast studden-sails set,'
added Ben.
`Do you mean white gown, cap and big sleeves, Ben?' inquired the commodore.
`I does, Commodore,' answered Ben gravely.
`Well Ben, there is a strong likeness.'
`Especially under-weigh, with the wind fair.'
`Ah, Ben, I see you have an understanding eye to the lasses. Why a'nt
you married?'
`It's first this, commodore. When I was a younker not more nor eighteen,
I come athwart as snug a little craft as ever run afore the wind. I
bore up and hove to along side and spoke her, as she showed friendly
colours. Well, we sailed in company awhile, and finally she said she'd
let me convoy her through the voyage of life. So I consents, and lays in
stores, gets a new rig below and aloft, and we starts for the parson to splice
us. Well, commodore would you believe it, just as we was enterin'
the straits of the church, a light cruiser come athwart our course, and running
down, spoke her. The chap proved to be an old cruising companion
of her's, what she thought had gone to Davy's locker. So he asks her to
heave to and come under his lee. She cast off her hawsers from me, and
before I could understand the manœuvre, commodore, she was under his
quarter. I went into action at once to recover her, and we fought about six
minutes, when he struck. The she craft then up helm, scud away before
the wind and was soon hull down. I then bore up to repair damages; and
ever since then, I've been cruising yer honor, without a consort.'
`It's a hard case, Ben. These female craft, Ben, are little better than pirates.
They'll sail under any and every flag. The best way is to give 'ern
a wide birth.'
`It stands to reason we should, yer honor,' answered Ben with didactical
gravity.
On reaching her chamber, poor Grace gave way to tears, and bitter regrets
at the sudden overthrow of all dreams of love. Though she had defended
Frank to her father, she felt that she could not exculpate him to her
own heart. She knew his spirit, and she could not but tremble lest he
should prove to have been all in the wrong. Her father had not told her,
nor did the paper inform her whether Frank had returned in the ship; but
she supposed of course that he was on board—perhaps a prisoner! How
should she ascertain this? How should she see him. She thought of his
mother, and her heart mourned for her when she should Lear this sad
news!
`I will be its bearer. I will gently break it to her,' she said. `She will
then proceed to Boston and through her, I shall hear all!'
This idea had no sooner occurred to her, than she left the house while
her father and Ben were talking together; and hastening to the water-side,
she rowed to the opposite shore. Mrs. Winter received her with affection
and also with a look of anxious inquiry; for Grace was pale and her face full
of horror. As gently as she could, Grace communicated the painful intelligence
of which she was the bearer. It was received with an emotion of
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sorrow that only a mother can know. When Grace had communicated all
she knew, Mrs. Winter at once declared her intention of proceeding to Boston
the same day to see her son. She promised to write Grace immediately,
the result of her visit.
Mrs. Winter did not reach Boston until the ensuing morning, when she
left the stage for a hackney-coach, in which she drove to the wharf, opposite
which the corvette lay at anchor. She was about to call a boat, to go
on board, when a cutter from the ship of war containing two officers
landed at the stairway. She waited until the elder of the officers, who was
very pale with his arm in a sling came near her, whom she addressed him
with all the calmness she could command:
`Sir, do you belong on board of the Concord?'
`Yes, madam,' he answered with marked politness, seeing that the person
who inquired was evidently a lady.
`Can you tell me any thing of—of—young Francis Winter?—Is he on
board?'
`You seem to be much agitated, madam. Will you sustain yourself by
my arm?'
`I thank you, sir, I do not require it. Is he on board?'
`He is not, madam.'
`Oh, sir, have they taken him on shore to prison? Where have they
conveyed him! He is my son—my only son! I have heard of his duel and
have hastened to see him, and know the worst that may befall him! Is the
officer dead, sir?'
`No, madam. I am that officer. I regret the affair deeply, on your account
as well as your son's. Perhaps I was to blame. In the height of a storm I
spoke to him somewhat severely, not having time to choose my words, as
we cannot always have. He took offence, and at Mahon challenged me.
I did not wish to meet him, and in excuse plead his under-rank. He at
once threw up his midshipman's birth, and as he was a gentleman I had no
alteruative but to give him the satisfaction he sought. He wounded me severely,
though not so badly as the papers say. I am just recovering from it
as you see.'
`And he—my son?'
`Escaped, thank God! unharmed.'
`And where is he?'
`He remained at Mahon! I presume he will return home in the first merchant
vessel.'
`Sir accept a mother's thanks for your information! It is not so bad as I
feared. I grieve at my son's fiery spirit and his resignation of his place in
the navy, merely to gratify his wounded feelings. I trust sir you are recovering?
'
`I am nearly well, madam.'
`Poor Frank!'
`Insubordination was his only, that is his only grave fault, madam! He
was much liked by his fellows, and had many friends. I trust you will
soon have the happiness of meeting him. Good morning, madam.'
The officer left her. She regained her carriage and sought her home, to
wait in anxious maternal solicitude the first intelligence from her son.—
Grace, to whom she communicated all, and who had listened to her repetition
of the officers words in Frank's praise, with pure delight, was no less
solicitous than herself; and day after day passed in the most painful expec
tations.
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CHAPTER IV.
The Agent's Letter and Frank's Drafts. Grace receives a Letter
from Frank. The Result. Her noble Reply.
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Three weeks elapsed after the arrival of the corvette, during which time
the anxiety of the parties, so deeply interested in the young midshipman,
became daily more intense. At length one morning as Grace, having secretly
stolen from home, was entering the old mansion of Meadow Farm,
to learn if any news had yet arrived, she encountered Caleb at the door about
to enter. He held a letter in his hand.
`You are from the Post Office, Caleb. What have you?' she asked cagerly.
`A letter, Miss Grace, but 'taint mister Frank's hand write; and he held
it up to her.
`No. It is a strange hand, and also mailed at Boston.
Mrs. Winter appeared and eagerly took the letter into her hands.
`No, it is not from Francis,' she said, disappointed; but it is from my
agent in Boston. Perhaps he has news.'
They entered the house; Mrs. Winter broke the seal and rapidly run over
it, while Grace watched her countenance with intense suspense. She saw
it change to a deadly pale, and then a starding paleness succeed. Her hand
trembled, and tears blinded her.
`What has happened, dear Mrs. Winter? What of Francis?'
`Read, Grace! Read, dear child! I fear that he has fallen into evil habits.
It is news—but news of a painful character to a mother's heart!'
Grace took the letter, and with a beating heart, read as follows:
Boston, September 10, 18—.
Dear Madam:—Since I have learned your son's resignation of a midshipman's
berth on account of a duel, I deem it my duty to advise you of certain matters,
touching finances, which I have withheld. I am led to this step from the
contents of a letter, received this morning by him, dated at Marseilles on the 1st
ult. What I wish to state is this. Besides your draft for five hundred dollars,
paid to supply him with funds to take away, he drew on me from Vera Cruz for
five hundred more, which draft I paid, having your instructions to supply him
with money whenever he wrote to this effect. From Havana, three weeks afterwards,
I received another draft at sight for three hundred dollars, which I also
paid. Subsequently I paid a draft from Smyrna for eight hundred dollars,
one from Constantinople for five hundred, and more recently two from Mahon,
one for six and the other for four hundred and fifty dollars; and this morning I
have received a brief letter from him, dated at Marseilles, desiring me to transmit
to him, without delay, two thousand dollars! As this amount will considerably
exceed what I hold at interest, I have concluded to advise you before remitting,
though having full confidence in your ability and willingness to refund
any advances I might make I trust, madam, that your son has not fallen into
evil habits; but the large sams he has drawn, and which could not be expended
on board ship, lead me to suspect he has not been pursuing a course altogether
upright.
I remain, dear madam,
Your obedient servant,
Pratt Parker.
When Grace had finished reading this letter, she silently folded it and remained
a few moments thoughtful. Her countenance was sorrowful, and
tears were swimming in her eyes. Mrs. Winter watched her with anxious
earnestness for a moment and then exclaimed:
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`You think also, Miss Ellingwood, that my poor boy has been erring!'
`I do not know what to say, dear madam. Francis could not possibly
make use of all this money for current expenses.'
`Besides, he had a large outfit. He needed nothing,' said Mrs. Winter.
`It is very strange. I fear the worst. I tremble to know the worst.'
`What do you apprehend, Miss Ellingwood?' she inquired with alarm.
`I fear he has been tempted to play! Only in this manner could he have
absorbed such large sums.'
Mrs. Winter clasped her hands with strong feeling, and a sigh of bitter
anguish escaped her! For a few moments both were silent, overcome with
the emotion to which this apprehension gave rise.
`And no letter from him all the while?' observed Grace, wiping the tears
from her eyes.
`None! He writes Mr. Parker, but studiously shuns communication with
me! This grieves me most, Grace.'
`It looks dark, dear Mrs. Winter; but I trust it may yet turn out better
than we think. Frank may have had some good purpose to which to appropriate
this money. He only can explain. Let us wait until to-morrow.
Another day may bring us a letter, for I think he must have written you by
the same vessel which brought your agent's.'
The next morning, as Grace was wending her way in her light skiff
across the river, she heard Caleb calling to her on the shore. Thinking he
had, perhaps, news from Frank, she redoubled her exertions, and soon landed
beneath the sycamore, where Frank had first discovered her angling in
the brook mouth for trout. Caleb was standing on the bank, and his broad
sun-browned face was alive with animation.
`Well, Miss Grace, I've got news for ye, at last. I was goin' across to get
to see you, as Mistress told me not to make no delay, but get to speak to
yer just as soon as I could.'
`And what news have you, Caleb?' she asked with a flushed cheek and
panting yet from her rapid rowing.
`From mister Frank. Mistress has got a letter from him this morning,
and she's both laughing and crying. She tell'd me to come strait and tell
you to come and see her just as soon as — whew! There she is, off
like a mitten. I say, Miss Grace! Well, if ever I seed a young six week's
red heifer skip over the ground lighter nor quicker! She's out o' sight an'
hearin' a'ready: and instead o' havin' a nice walk in her company back to
the house I've got to take it in my own!'
On reaching the mansion of Meadow Farm, Grace flew into the house
without ceremony.
`A letter from Frank, Caleb tells me, dear madam?'
`Yes, Grace, answered Mrs. Winter, and listen to mine first, she said with
a slight smile.
`You have one for me?' cried the blushing girl.
`Yes, dear Grace—here it is. It came enclosed in mine. It must contain
the most news—for his to me is very brief. Be patient, dear, and hear me
read his to me, and then we will see what he says in yours. Yours seems
very full, while I have scarcely a dozen lines. But it is natural he should
write the longest to you, Grace.'
While Mrs. Winter was again opening her letter, Grace was examining the
superscription and seal of the one she held in her trembling hands. The
writing of the address was more careless and bolder than his, and the seal
was plain. This slight proof that there was a change in Frank, went to her
heart. She now listened to his letter to her mother.
Marseilles, August 1st, 18—.
My dear Mother:—You will probably have learned by the time you get
this, that I have thrown up my birth in the navy, fought a duel, and wounded
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my opponent. I am sorry to have to say to you that this is all true; though I do
not regret the transaction. I was insulted, not once only, but through a continued
series of petty insults, which no young man of spirit could put up with,
whether from a superior office or not. I recognise no rank above that which is
established in the bosom of every gentleman and man of honor. Accepting a
junior rank in the navy, does not make me less a gentleman, nor enjoin upon
me a slavish submission. I did but assert and maintain my right to courteous
treatment, and I was laughed at. I called out the officer who most provoked
me, and who took a pleasure in using his power to annoy me. He got behind
his privilege as my superior and refused to meet me. I promptly tendered my
resignation to the commander, and as a `gentleman,' as I was now acknowledged
to be, he was willing to meet me. We fought and he was wounded, but not so
severely as to endanger his life. I do not say a word to exculpate myself, for I
do not attach to my conduct any blame. My course would be approved by every
man of spirit; and since I was not compelled to remain in the navy to subsist,
you will not, dear mother, think I have done wrong in resenting insult and petty
tyranny. I remained a few days in Mahon, and came over here in a French
brig last week. Now I am in Europe, I shall avail myself of the opportunity
afforded me of travelling, and shall visit Paris and London. You may see me
home in about six months. I shall then remain with you, in your society and
that of Grace, to whom I enclose a line. I shall, I trust, perfectly enjoy myself.
Your affectionate son,
Francis.
`This is an affectionate letter, and does not look as if he was doing wrong,'
said Wrs. Winter, after ending its perusal; `I regret his leaving the navy;
but as he says he need not remain in it for a means of living!'
`I don't like its tone! It seems to me cold and indifferent. I less like
his tour to Paris and London,' said Grace, very seriously. `I confess that I
do not recognise Frank's noble and generous nature in that letter. It has a
reckless air and by no means like his former letters. Besides he has made
no allusion to his large drafts on your agents. This is the worst feature of
all.'
`Why, Miss Ellingwood, you are severe upon him. You know he must
have written to me under constraint fearing I might be displeased,
aud so this constraint looks like coldness and indifference And he
says right about his being above the necessity of having a profession;
and then his omission to speak of the drafts might have been from
forgetfulness, or because he didn't suppose it necessary to inform me so
long as I had given him permission to draw for what he needed. I can't
see, on the whole, dear Grace, that Frank has done any thing wrong except
fighting. That I can't approve of. But then do you know his grandfather,
when he was in the army, had a duel with a French officer? He had, and
my boy's spirit is a good deal like his grandfather's.'
`I am sorry I cannot see Francis' conduct in the same softening light in
which your maternal partiality leads you to view it, Mrs. Winter. I fear the
worst. I tremble to open this letter!'
Her fingers really trembled, and her face was deadly pale as she broke
the seal. She read it first to herself and then handed it to Mrs. Winter:
Marseilles, August 2d, 18—.
Dearest Grace:—With the vivid recollection of your parting words, reiterated
in your sweet letters to me, warning me firmly, but gently against my giving
way to what you termed my `peculiar notions of honor,' I scarcely know
how to address you. Before you receive this, the corvette will have reached
Boston, and the papers will probably have bruited the intelligence of a duel between
me and Lieutenant — .Now I am not about to defend myself. If you knew
the circumstances you would exculpate me, I am confident. I had borne with a
patience and forbearance which would have commanded your respect and approval;
injuries to my feelings, till patience was no longer a virtue, and forbear
ance became cowardice. Let me recount a few instances as a specimen of the
whole. I had been but three days out, and then ignorant of the peculiar
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exclusiveness of the quarter deck, I was walking on the weather side, when the first
lieutenant seeing me, approached me and said in a peremptory tone—
`This is not your place, sir. When you walk the quarter deck, please to
choose the leeward side, sir!' There was a suppressed laugh among the seamen
near, and a smile on the face of the other officers, and abashed, angry and burning
with the insult, I obeyed! The next day I had occasion to address the commodore,
when he said haughtily, `I will thank you to lift your cap, Mr. Winter,
when you address the commanding officer on his quarter deck!'
Now what right had he to address me in this manner? Should a gentleman
do it in the street, would it not be an insult to me? How does a quarter deck
make it less an insult? But I obeyed him, Grace! I forebore a reply I touched
my cap as a slave does to his master. I was taught `good manners' by a man
whose awkwardness is a by-word.
Again, at Key-West, I desired permission to go on shore. The lieutenants
refused it, because an hour before I had replied to an order, enforced with an
oath, that I would obey if my feelings as a gentleman were recognised. Beside
he swore to report me to the commodore as soon as he came on board. We lay
three days in Key-West, and I never left the ship! although every other midshipman
went ashore by leave or on duty. At Vera Cruz I was ordered to take
command of a boat to go for stores to the city. Supposing I should meet genteel
people, and have an hour to walk around while the stores were preparing, I
dressed myself very neatly. When I came on deck to get into the boat, the
lientenant looked at me with mock respect, and said, sarcastically to Ellis, another
midshipman, who, in his every day clothes was standing near the gangway:
`Mr. Ellis, you may take charge of the boat, as I see Mr. Winter has got himself
so nicely rigged, that it would be a pity to have his coat dirtied or his ruffles
soiled! He can best keep them clean by promenading up and down on
the starboard side of the quarter deck!'
I could not help flinging him back a glance of indignant defiance; for the insult
was in the presence of many. I made no reply, for I knew this man had
power, yes power, to place me in irons if he saw fit to do so. Can you blame
me, Grace, for saying in my heart that I would not remain in a position which
subjected me to such insulting treatment? I know you will respect my determination
and give me your sympathy.
On the voyage to the Meditterranean, and during six months cruise there, I
was constantly exposed to their insults, until at length I resolved to assert my
independence and privileges as a man! At Port Mahon I challenged him. He
refused to fight because I was a midshipman. I at once threw up my warrant,
and so far became `a gentleman' in his eyes, by the act, that he met me. I wounded
him. The ship sailed from Mahon soon afterwards, leaving me behind.—
Here Grace, I had time and leisure to reflect upon what I had done, and to consider
the whole course I had pursued! The result was that I acquitted myself.
I determined that, under similar circumstances, I would do again precisely as I
had done. I repeat the decision. I am confident that my course was the only
one a gentleman could pursue.
But, Grace, I feel that before the pure and severe tribunal in your heart, I shall
be less easily acquitted! I know you will censure me! I feel that you will
grieve at my resignation, and recur to what you once told me, that `my high
spirit of independence and insubordination would yet bring evil upon me!' I
have seen no evil from this step yet, Grace, only so far as it may yet affect me in
your esteem and friendship which above all things earthly I most prize. You
will learn by my letter to my mother that I proceed to Paris and London, and
thence homeward. If you will condescend to write me after my `grave fault,'
be so kind as to direct your letters to Paris for the next three months.”
The letter ended with expressions of tenderness, devotion and ardent
love, and of anticipations of the happiness he should enjoy on once more
meeting her. The two letters were then discussed by the recipients and
the result was, that Frank was acquitted and pardoned, with a grave censure
from Grace. He was at once written to, to this effect, by Mrs. Winter;
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and in part to this effect by Grace. As we are now in the way of correspondence,
we will give a copy of Grace's letter:
Grove Laws, Sept. 4, 18—.
Dear Francis:—Your letter to me I have received and read with great care.
That you have done wrong in resigning and fighting a duel, there is no question.
By the one act you have sinned against God; by the other deprived yourself of
distinction in an honorable profession. But while I censure you I cannot but
feel that you have had provocation; but not enough to lead to such results. If
you had properly reflected upon the necessity of degrees of rank in the service,
and the necessity of discipline, you might have better borne the evils of a system
which originated in necessity. To obey is not degrading. To obey, one by no
means parts from one jot of his self-respect. Have you not heard the remark
that one must learn to obey before one can command! This, it strikes me, is
truth. William the Fourth was, when a prince, a midshipman, and obeyed like
others. Did he lose any of his real dignity of character? But it is past now,
Frank! I only wish you could have borne it with more forbearance still. But
to resign was enough. To resign at once freed you from your situation. It cured
at once the evil. What need was there to fight a duel afterwards? The evil of
which you complained no longer remained, why should you fight? Alas, I fear it
was a feeling of revenge that as ill became a gentleman as submission to authority,
Frank! After you had quit the navy you should have let the act thrown a veil
of oblivion over the past. You should have resigned to be free, not to take the
life of a foe. Your motive, therefore, in resigning was a bad one! When the
resignation in itself would free you from your condition, what was the use in
trying to blow out the lieutenant's brains afterwards?
Now, considering all things, Frank, I think I must come to the conclusion that
you have been all in the wrong. You will say I reason like a woman! I do reason
like a woman—one who is too deeply interested in your welfare and honor
to look upon your acts with indifference. In fighting this duel you have got
yourself, in the very outset in life, a reputation by no means honorable. The
stigma will attach to you through life. It will give you a certain kind of notoriety
among midshipmen and young men, but the thinking, sober world who constitute
society will disapprove! I am sorry, Frank, but now that it is past it
can't be helped. I only hope you will make an effort for my sake and your
mother's to retrieve this sad step. Be assured your conduct has thrown an insurmountable
obstacle in the way of my father's consent. He has seen the account
of your duel and does not spare you! I regret to find you are to remain
abroad some months. It would have been a happiness to your mother to have
seen you earlier than you contemplate coming. She seems very desirous, now
that you have left the navy, that you should return home, and remain with and to
take charge of the estate. I need not say that I join with her in the desire to
see you. Perhaps, if you settle down as a proprietor and become acquainted
with my father, he may by and by—but I dare not look forward! I fear you
forget me! Your indifference about returning makes me feel a sadness I cannot
express. Besides—but why should I hesitate? We have always been confidential
with each other—why should I fear to make known my fears? Your mother's
agent has just written saying that you have drawn on him for several thousands
of dollars, since you left, and that the amount in his hands is over-drawn
by a recent draft of two thousands dollars! Now this intelligence, Frank, I tell
you without any disguise, has deeply grieved both your mother and myself. She
does not grieve for the money, for she would impoverish herself to serve you;
but she fears with me that, inasmuch as so much money could not be expended
by you in the short space of eleven months that you have fallen into the dangerous
fascinations of play. I feel convinced it is so, Frank. I am certain
that you have lost this money, and have made these enormous drafts to discharge
debts of honor! I can conceive no other way in which it could have
been disposed of. This opinion is strengthened by the recollection that you
once told me that once, when at Boston, you attended the races at Cambridge,
and won a hundred dollars by betting. At the time I did not speak of it,
though it led me to think. But now I feel assured that the propensity then
manifested has taken hold upon you; and that in Havana, or some port where
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gambling is a profession you have been enticed to play. You make no allusion
to it in your letter, but I am persuaded that I am right in my suspicions. If I
am, dear Frank, for your mother's sake, for my sake, for your own honor and
happiness stop and never play again. I adjure you! I pray! I implore you!
never touch card or dice again. Go not to t'aris. Avoid London! Come home
at once, and here in the society of your dear mother, and in that of one whose
happiness is too dearly interwoven with your own, try to redeem the past and
be happy!
Your friend,
Grace.
The reader will discover in this letter the strength and excellence of no
ordinary character. Grace was not only beautiful in person, but also in
mind, with a heart full and overrunning with good and generous emotions.
She was a treasure that any man might proudly wear. She deeply loved
Frank, and while she laid openly before him, and censured his errors, she
did not cease to love him the less! His faults of character, his errors of
conduct, did not diminish her pure, ardent, and womanly attachment. The
letters were despatched. We will now precede them to their destination.
CHAPTER V.
The Ex-Middy in Marseilles. The means resorted to to continue
Play. The character of Ellis. The Discovery. The three
hundred Francs. The interior of the Salon d'Hercule.
The scene of the story now changes to the streets of Marseilles. It is
night; but the hour is not late. The cafes are open and brilliantly lighted;
the theatre is illuminated and surrounded by carriages; the foot-ways are
thronged with passers-by, and the sound of music and gaiety comes from
the open windows of many a stately mansion and princely hotel.
A little remote from the crowded thoroughfare, at the corner of a narrow
street leading to the Quay, is a large rambling structure built of stone,
crowned with a battlement and surmounted by two turrets. It was erected
three or four centuries before for the residence of the Captaine of the Port;
but had now got to be a sort of inn for the entertainment of seafaring strangers.
One of the tenants contained a spy-glass for the convenience of the
guests in looking out upon the harbor and road-sted, to watch the arrival of
vessels, and the other served as a signal tower, to announce by a flag the
nation of any vessel that was approaching the port. The part of the building
facing the quay was wide and imposing. The lower floor was occupied
as a cafe, where from morning till night, was to be found assembled
most of the officers of vessels in port. From the second story, projected a
spacious balcony where they sat and smoked or read the Gazettes, with the
lively scenes of the quay and harbor to divide their attention. On the side
next the narrow street alluded to, the edifice presented in form and appearance
a long high, dark wall, with here and there a small window many feet
from the ground; looking altogether like the rear of a convent. At the extremity
of this blank wall was a small postern door, which led into the garden,
enclosed from the narrow lane. An old yew-tree grew at this angle,
overshadowing the walk for many a yard with its wide-reaching branches.
At the hour of night, on which this chapter opens, a young man might
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have been seen walking to and fro beneath this tree, buried in his own
thoughts. He was wrapped in a cloak, as if to conceal his features and person,
for the night was not cool, but the front was now dropped from his face
upon his breast, across which his arms were folded. He had a few minutes
before, come out of the brightly lighted cafe at the corner, and turned
with a quick tread up this solitary avenue, as if seeking seclusion. By the
light of the lamps as he passed out, it could be seen that his face was flushed
and its expression troubled. The features were those of Francis Winter.
As he reached the tree, he stopped as if uncertain whether or not to proceed.
The lane at its outlet led into one of the most frequented streets of
the city, and the glimmer of its lights penetrated far into the gloom of the
lane. He stopped and seemed to reflect for a moment, and then returning
upon his steps, began to pace to and fro slowly, and yet treading at times
with a marked decision of step that betrayed a strong conflict of feeling
within. He continued in this manner, pacing to and fro in the shadow of
the lofty wall as a seaman paces his deck; when hearing a footstep he
raised his head. The person who advanced, came from the farther extremity
of the lane. Frank listened with eager attention and then moved on a
few paces to meet him as if recognising the step. He stopped near the
postern and awaited him.
`Frank!' said the stranger as he came within a few feet of him.
`Ellis?' he responded. `So you have returned,' he said eagerly. `What
success?'
`Three hundred francs!' answered the young man, who as Barton Ellis,
has already been introduced to the reader, as one of Frank's fellow midshipman.
`There hundred franks!' cried Winter through his clenched teeth.
`They would offer no more. I did my best, Frank.'
`It is not enough! Three hundred francs for a watch and jewelry that
cost a thousand!'
`It will answer our present emergencies, Winter. You can redeem it
again you know as soon as your two thousand dollar remittance comes.'
`Yes—it is not like selling it for that sum. But on what time have you
got this done?'
`Thirty days.'
`It is enough. I shall get my money then, if ever. It is time a vessel
was here from Boston. Did not Du Moulin & Co. say they expected a packet
daily?'
`Yes. I have no doubt we shall have her in this week. So dont let the
blues take hold of you so infernally, Frank!' You have been looking the
last three days as if you had not a friend on earth.'
`And if the friends I value most, knew what had been my course since I
quit the corvette I am very positive I should not have a friend on earth,
Ellis!'
`If every body else should cut you Frank, I am your true friend you
know, hey?' said Ellis with a sort of tipsy, maudlin tone.
`Yes you'll be my friend, Ellis; so long as I have any money or means
to raise it with,' answered Winter, with a slight shadow of contempt.
`Oh, dont say that, Frank, my dear boy,' answered Ellis colouring and
biting his lip, yet too dependent upon his friend to take offence at an insult;
`I like you Frank. You are a devilish noble fellow.'
`Well—let me see the money you have got at this brokers!' said Winter
moodily.
`You are cross to-night, Winter,' answered Ellis, as he placed in his hand
a small bag of silver. `The jingle of this, my dear fellow, should put you
into good humor.'
`It is better than nothing. It may enable me to redeem my losses. Here
-- 029 --
[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]
are twenty-five francs, for your trouble Ellis;' and Frank as he spoke
placed this sum in his hand.
`Thank you, Winter,' said the young man, accepting it with an air of affected
indifference, to disguise if possible from himself his own sense of dependence
and degredation.
`Come now, let us to the salon,' said Frank with animation—a sort of
false gaiety. `Come, Ellis! I will try once more the fickle jade. I must
win to night or I am a lost man! I have been three days without money,
and my host has in the meanwhile handed me his bill, for myself and you
Barton, to the tune of two hundred and fifty francs! I should relieve myself
from great embarrasment by at once placing this money in his hands to
pay it, leaving us twenty five francs apiece to try our fortune.'
`That would be folly, Frank! what is twenty-five francs to you who never
stake less than fifty. To a poor devil like me who never saw any more
money than a middy's pay, twenty-five francs is a small fortune to begin
with. But you wouldn't look at it! Let old Fonbleau learn patience, and
wait your remittance.'
`I will do so. You say true. If I pay him and loose my twenty five
francs, then I am shipwrecked. I have suffered too much at being without
money the last three days. It is torment, Ellis. I will not put myself in this
way again. I shall only venture my two hundred francs to-night, keeping
back seventy-five for pocket money; if I lose! allons!'
Winter then placed his arm through that of Ellis, and the two young men
proceeded together up the lane on their way to one of the most dangerous
and fashionable gambling salons in Marseilles.
Ten weeks had elapsed, since Frank had written to his agent, and to his
mother and Grace Ellingwood. To neither of these letters had he yet received
any reply. The usual time for getting an answer had expired, and
merchants who had written by the same vessel, were looking for returns.
In the meanwhile the ex-midshipman passed his time in the rounds of fashionable
amusement; and, as has been seen not a little of his time had been
passed in the fascinating halls of the goddess of chance. The suspicions
that arose to the mind of Grace Ellingwood, on reading the letter of Mrs.
Winter's agent, was correct. The young midshipman had early imbibed
even at Exeter, a taste for betting. Always supplied with money, he betted
at marbles, and at tenor-balls, planked stakes for foot-races upon the green,
and even run pony-races on the turnpike. This propensity he carefully
kept from his mother; and his influence led to the adoption of the habit of
betting among all his school-fellows who could command money. This
habit Frank carried with him into the navy. He found two or three congenial
spirits in the steerage, and before he reached Vera Cruz, he lost every
dollar of the large sum his mother had placed at his disposal. He would
bet upon the wind next day; upon a distant sail, whether a brig or a ship—
armed or merchantman; upon the next order that would be given in a gale
of wind; upon the days yet to come before getting into port, and even upon
the fact, whether the commander would come on deck first in his morning
gown or linen roundabout. Barton Ellis won most of his money.—
This young gentleman was by no means very correct in his moral feeling
and his habits were dissipated. He was of good family, but his father who
had once been rich, had become impoverished, and sent his son into the
navy to provide for him. Brought up in expensive habits and a free use of
money, Ellis felt deeply his dissipation; and found it a hard matter to
circumscribe his desires within the narrow limits of his midshipman's
pay. He therefore resorted to play, to eke out his means; but being oftener
the looser, he brought to his aid tricks and treachery; in a word, cheated.
He was not long in discovering that Winter had money and was fond
of play. He, therefore, sought to become intimate with him; and with such
-- 030 --
[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]
success, that on the arrival of the corvette at Vera Cruz, he had transfered
a large portion of Frank's five hundred dollars to his own pocket. At
Havana, he visited with him the salons of fortune, and won much of his
money there. The rest he lost to the bank. Here he was forced to borrow
of a merchant and make a second draught on Mr. Pratt Parker. It was
in this way that, as port after port was visited, drafts came to fall so fast upthe
agent for funds. Frank, however, was not always a loser. He won a
good deal of money, but he played so much and perseveringly, that he invariably
left off a loser. His infatuation was such he could never leave the
table so long as he had a stake to lay upon the board. Such madness resulted
inevitably in rapidly emptying his purse faster than it was replenished
by his agents remittances.
After he had fought the duel at Mahon, in which Ellis assisted him as
second, Frank took lodgings in town and devoted his hours to pleasure. Ellis
as a test of friendship, after the duel swore to Frank he would resign also.
But his commodore foretold his intention by sending an officer to arrest
him and convey him on board. But Ellis, who was in a coffee house
at the time, resisted; Winter came to his aid and the party was driven off
Ellis secreted himself until the corvette sailed and then accompanied Frank
with whom he linked his fortunes, in a French brig to Marseilles. Here
they remained, given up to pleasure and play, the conscientious Ellis, being
wholly without money and dependant upon what he won of Winter, or
cheated him out off; for Frank himself, open and generous in play, never
suspected that his friend was treacherous.
At the time they now appear before the reader, tortune had been averse
to both, and Frank had just been reduced to the humiliating expediency of
sending his watch and other jewelry to a broker's. Ellis had suggested this
mode—one with which he himself had long been familiar, and as his friend
objected to making such application in person, he very cheerfully offered to
do it for him. So just at the close of the day, Frank committed to him the
jewelry and after waiting an hour impatiently for his return, had left the
cafe to meet him. He had hoped to obtain at least six or seven hundred
francs upon the articles; and his disappointment was intense on finding
Ellis brought him only half the sum—about sixty dollars for what he valued
at more than two hundred. But there was no alternative; and with this he
resolved to retrieve his losses.
In all this mad career of play, did no holy thought of Grace Ellingwood
cross his mind? Did not her warning words, her gentle advice, her affectionate
cautions; with the consciousness of her pure deep love for him, so
unworthy of it, plead in behalf of honor and virtue? Did not his conscience
pierce his heart with upbraidings for his reckless course?
Not a day passed that her image was not in his mind. He seemed to see
her by his side as he played, and to feel her gentle hand withdrawing him
from the fatal tables! But he played on! He closed his eyes—his heart!
He barred up his conscience with bars of steel and played on! He tried to
forget with her his mother; he would succeed for a time, and play on!
Then would come losses and reflection! Then regret and remorse, and
self-hatred would render his hours miserable and unendurable! He would
then fly to the wine cup! Relief—relief from his thoughts, relief from pure
memories of the good and the beautiful who loved him, he sought in the
bowl of intoxication! Such alas! was the downward course of the young
officer who had too high sense of honor to obey a superior or even acknowledge
one. Three short months since he had left the corvette, with the companionship
of Ellis, who had a certain kind of influence over him, although
he was thoroughly despised by his more noble victim, had in him, in whom
Grace felt so deep an interest, all this fearful change of character and life!
The two young men took their way together towards the Salon d'Hercule.
-- 031 --
[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]
Winter had put his arm through that of Ellis, but rather with a haughty
feeling of condescension, than from familiarity. He had seen enough of
this young man in their latter intercourse, to know that he possessed neither
honor, truth nor integrity. He had seen with surprise that he was not
ashamed to degrade himself to flatter and pawn upon him and to play a second
part to his first so long as he held the purse strings; that he unblushingly
showed his money and offered himself like a servant to the meanest duties.
Frank, therefore, despised him; but he did not care that he should see it,
or wish to throw him off, for he felt his usefulness to him under his present
circumstances. But he inwardly resolved that as soon as the amount of his
last draft should arrive, that he would secretly quit Marseilles for Paris,
leaving him ignorant of his departure. Frank had also a deeper motive for
disliking him than the deficiences of character which he manifested. He
knew Grace Ellingwood! He had sailed once in a frigate commanded by
her father, on board which she was passenger. He had spoken to Frank of
her, of her beauty and fascinations, without being aware that he to whom
he was speaking also knew her; without suspecting how deeply interested
he was in her. He had told Frank that he loved her, and had even had the
boldness to address a note to her, declaring his passion.
`And what reply did she return you?' demanded the young lover as calmly
as he could.
`She wrote me,' answered Ellis, with a half laugh, by which he vainly
tried to conceal his chagrin and anger, `that—'
`Wrote to you!'
`Yes. Quite honored me! This was the wording of the note! Confounded
cool and civil! “Sir, as I have a large eircle of acquaintances, it is
not my wish, at present, to make any additions to it.” '
`And this was all her reply?'
`Word for word! Cool was'nt it?'
Frank could not help smiling, and saying he thought it was so. This
conversation took place only a day or two previous to their previous introduction
to the reader in the street of Marseilles. The knowledge of the fact,
that Ellis had offered himself to Grace did not by any means serve to make
Frank like him any better. Her reply to him, however, mollified him, and
led him rather to triumph than hate. At any rate he could not look upon
Frank in the light of a rival. His determination, however, to get rid of
his society was confirmed by the knowledge of this fact.
They left the gloomy shadows of the lane leading from the Quay Rue—,
one of the most spacious streets in Marseilles. It was about nine
in the evening. The numerous cafes, salons and places of amusement that
crowded this avenue, were lighted up; and crowds were constantly entering
and departing. All was gaiety and splendor. Without heeding these
temptations to participate in pleasure, the two young men kept on their
way until they came to a part of this thoroughfare, where the lights were
less numerous, and the houses more modern and elegant, separated from
each other by gardens, and adorned with colonnades, porticoes or galleries;
and having more the air of villas than hotels in the bosom of a great metropolis.
In the lofty vine-trellised wall of one of these noble mansions
was a gate-way with an arch above it, supporting a bronzed eagle volant.
A globular lantern being suspended above it from a brazen chain held in the
talons of the eagle. The lamp was globular, gave a red light, and was intended
to represent a thunderbolt, and the chain was of a zig-zag form and
represented lightning. The effect was striking and singular. It was probably
intended merely as an ornamental design, outre in its kind; but it might
very well have prefigured the fate of those who ventured to cross this lightning
guarded threshold! for the thunderbolt was not a truer arrow of destruction
than that which pierced the souls of all who entered there!
At this gate, Winter and Ellis stopped. The latter pulled a knob and the
gate was opened by an old man.
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[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]
`The word, Messieurs!'
`Napoleon!' answered Winter.
`Pass!' answered the janitor, opening the gate at its full width, and immediately
closing it after them.
`Are there many gentlemen present to night?' he asked of the old man.
`But few, Monsieur. It is a saint's eve, and the city has too much gaiety
to tempt cavaliers abroad!'
`So much the better,' said Winter, addressing Ellis.
They then proceeded through an arched passage paved in Mosaics, and
handsomely ornamented with architectural mouldings and points. It contained
no furniture and echoed loudly to their two-fold tread. At its extremity,
they mounted a flight of marble steps which led to folding doors.
These were thrown open by an attendant within, and they entered a spacious
ante-room, surrounded with voluptuous divans covered with orangecolored
velvet, fringed with gold. In the centre, hung a magnificent chandelier,
which shed the light of noon-day around the apartment. Pictures
in the richest frames and of the most exquisite description, with statuary,
graced the walls. The floor, laid with the sottest carpets, gave back no
sound to the tread. In this room were two gentlemen; one asleep upon a
divan, pale and starting each instant, his fine hair dishevelled and his attire
deranged; the other was coolly walking up and down the room, in a rich
dressing gown and Turkish slippers, smoking a hookah.
Passing through this ante-room, they drew aside a curtain that hung from
the ceiling to the floor, and found themselves in a vast chamber. It was
brilliantly lighted by chandeliers and girandoles. The walls were light blue
with a border of gold, and the dome-like ceiling of the same azure tint was
studded with stars of silver. The floor was white marble. The long pointed
windows ranged on each side were draped in crimson. The furnishing
of this apartment was its most striking feature. In the centre were four
billiard-tables, of the most costly material and workmanship, at which
several gentlemen were playing. Against the walls, opposite each table,
sat a man, with a black marble table before him, piled with gold and silver.
Three other similar alcoves and tables were on the sides of this immense
ball. At each table were one or two players. Between these tables were
divans, or more properly, couches of velvet, on which reclined the spectators
of the game, or those who wished to rest themselves from the fatigue
of playing. At the end of the hall, night the door, was a dais, covered with
Turkish carpeting, and behind it upon a sort of throne, was seated a young
and beautiful woman, robed in white and crowned with flowers. She was
attended by two younger but no less lovely, who presided at an alabaster table,
covered with sparkling wines, which were handed to all who came for
them, or were borne on silver salvers to the players. No winner could leave
the hall without a ticket from the female upon the throne, for which he paid
a Napoleon; and it was her part, by her smiles, and wit, and studied charms,
to enliven the scene. At the farther extremity of the hall, underneath a
statue of Hercules, in Orange, was another dais or platform, upon which
sat a man with a long black beard; in fact, a rich Jewish broker, whose business
it was to cash drafts and notes drawn by the players. Before him
were piles of gold and bills, and by his side stood two large vases, filled to
the brim with silver coin.
Such was the interior of the Salon d' Hercule, into which the two young
Americans entered; and into which they had first obtained admittance,
through the introduction of a French officer, whom they met in Marseilles,
and whom Frank had previously seen at Constantinople. As they entered
an attendant took their hats and cloaks, and gave them a metallic number
for them, and placed velvet caps in their hands. These they put on, and
then lounged up the hall together, slowly making the tour of the tables.
-- 033 --
CHAPTER VI.
The Interior of the Salon d'Hercule and the Green Table. The
successes of the Players. The Scenes that followed Winter's
betting at the Green Table.
[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]
As Winter and his friend passed round the magnificent hall, they were
recognised by two or three young Frenchman and an Englishman present,
with whom they exchanged nods. At length they came to a table of green
marble, placed in front of an alcove, curtained with green cloth fringed
with gold. Upon a carved chair, under the canopy, sat a beautiful female,
with snowy arms, glittering with jewelled bands, and a turban upon her
brow blazing with rubies. Her dark brilliant eyes were fringed with lashes
so very long that they cast shadows over her cheek, and veiled, while they
rendered more dangerous, the fire of her glances. Her festures sparkled
with the light of beauty, and her winning smiles were a snare to all who
had not been ruined in her toils. She was the daughter of one of the heaviest
bankers at that Bank of chances. The father had been stabbed to the
heart, a few months before, behind that very table, by a victim of whom he
had won the last Napoleon of a princely fortune, and she was now in his
place! being suffered to remain by the directors, rather than have so much
capital as she inherited drawn from the funds. She had appeared, after her
father's death, suddenly, like some dazzling meteor in the Salon d'Hercule!
No one had ever beheld her! She had lived retired; but in that retirement
her Jewish father had initiated her into all the mysteries of the accumulation
of gold and silver. With a person beautiful as that we conceive to belong
to angels, she had a heart of gold! She knew no feeling, no emotion beyond
gold! Her fine eyes sparkled, but they were as soulless as the diamonds
they rivalled in lustre. Her smile bewildered by its light, but it was
gilded with avarice. Hundreds of young men bowed before her shrine and
perished there! Yet she wore the same radiant countenance of unearthly
beauty, the same winning smiles and burning glances for other victims.—
They came and perished likewise! Soulless and passionless, she over-powered,
bewildered, dazzled and blasted! None who ventured to play at
her table won. The silver wand, which she held in her hand and with which
she swept the sums of gold towards the heaps upon her left hand, was as
fatal as the guillotine.
Winter had heard of her power! He had seen young men approach her
table, and after a few brief hours, rush forth in the madness of despair!—
He had seen one youth, after losing to her fifty thousand francs in the space
of an hour, deliberately place a pistol to his temples, and fall dead at her
feet! He had spoken with her a passing word or two, to listen to her syren-
like tones, and wonder, as he gazed, at her super-human beauty. He
felt, that with her glorious eyes resting upon him, the flashing of her white
arm before his eyes in its graceful motions, the rich tones of her voice that
made his heart leap and his blood thrill, the fascinating power of her smiles,
that to attempt to play with coolness and reflection, would be madness. He
therefore had frequented other tables. But having always been a loser at
these, as he now walked around the salon to select a bank, he suddenly
caught her eye fixed upon him. The next moment he stood before her.
`For Heaven's sake, Frank, don't venture a single franc at the shrine of
this goddess of silver!' said Ellis, drawing him back.
`I have resolved to play here! I am reckless of results now that I can
-- 034 --
[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]
only come to the gaming-table with money borrowed on pawn! I will risk
it fearlessly and boldly. Good evening, Mademoiselle!' he said, gaily.
`Bon soir, Monsieur!' she answered, with the most captivating dignity and
grace; je suis bien aise de vous voir en bonne sante.'
`Je vous en remercie infiniment, Mademoiselle!'
`Does Monsieur play to night?' she asked touching lightly, as if carelessly,
with the tip of her silver wand, a pile of Napoleon's on the left side of
the table.
`Que faire! I lose at every table, why may not I lose to yourself, Mademoiselle.
They say you are the Napoleon of bankers and win every stake!'
`You flatter me, Monsieur.'
`I know your success, Madame!' I fear you!' he said, smiling.
`I have been abused, Monsieur. I am but a poor banker at the best. I
am sure you will say so, if you throw down a Napoleon!'
`I will play at guinea-stakes, Mademoiselle. I fear my Napoleons, by a
sort of instinct, will fly away to increase your vast pile of them!'
`Eh bion!' she said with a graceful smile; `let us play with a guinea then,
Monsieur, if it please you. Asseyez vous pres de la table!'
The young man threw down a guinea, and placed himself upon a seat
near the table. The game was Faro. The bankress held in her left hand
a gold box, just the size of a card-pack, with a sliding cover adjusted, and
an elastic bottom. With a grace that in itself was enough to bewilder and
divert the attention of the player, she threw off from the top, card after card
as it appeared, and then suddenly arrested her finger upon the answering
card.
`You've won!' cried Ellis, with animation.
`Will Monsieur take up his guinea or double the stake!'
`Let them both remain,' he answered.
`Je vous remercie, Monsieur,' she said, as she again dealt the winged cards
upon the green marble, flying from her fingers like a flock of birds lighting
upon a lawn. With what grace and dignity she dealt! What a waving undulatory
movement of the snowy arm! What flashing and bewildering
movements of the glittering fingers! What a charming attitude of the
head! What depth of expreasion in the eyes, which seemed ever to be
resting with tenderness upon the face of the player! Winter was fascinated!
He felt that he could not be cool and collected beneath such artillery!
He saw at once the secret of her power over her victims! He half resolved,
whether he won or lost the present stake to change his table. He felt he
should lose every franc if he played there! She, who had the power to
make him think more of her than of his game, would certainly win all he
possessed!
`Qu'a cet homme!' she cried playfully, after holding before him the winning
card for full a half minute without his regarding it. `Monseur is the
winner!' and with a graceful motion of her wand she shoved the whole four
guineas across the marble before him.
`I am indeed a winner,' he said, looking up, and at once banishing his
thoughts and doubts. `But I fear I owe it to your courtesy.'
`Not at all, Monsieur! You see I am not invincible! that like Napoleon,
I may have my Waterloo! Shall we play for the same stakes—the four
guineas, Monsieur? Or will Monsieur please to increase it!'
`There is a fifth guinea, Mademoiselle,' said Winter, laying the piece of
gold upon the other four. `I play for small sums at first, Mademoiselle, as
you see. It becomes me to be careful how I advance with such a dangerous
opponent.'
`Vous pouvez faire ce qu'il vous plaira,' she responded graciously, as she
placed the pack of silver-edged cards under the lid of the box. `Quel!
dommage! Monsieur has lost!' she added with a smile. And with the wand
she swept the five guineas towards the pile of Napoleons.
-- 035 --
[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
Frank bit his lip with vexation. At one stroke he had lost one hundred
and twenty-five francs!
`This will not enrich us, Winter,' said Ellis, who had been watching the
game with deep interest, and whose disappointment was visible upon his
features. `It was madness to risk any thing here. None but a madman
would play at this infernal green table! She is a sorceress I am convinced!
If the devil is'nt in her body looking out of her handsome eyes, then I don't
know him! Come, let the five guineas go and let us try the roulette table!
There is an Englishman there winning at every turn of the wheel. See!
he has just won on double-O, black! thirty-two times his stake!'
`I am not to be intimidated by the loss of one stake,' said Frank, but a
guinea of it belonged to my capital! I feel a presentiment that I shall yet
come off a heavy winner!'
`Well, you can do as you please!' said Ellis, moodily.
`I presume I can, sir,' answered Frank haughtily.
`I shall try my twenty-five francs at roulette,' said Ellis, without showing
any resentment at the mode in which his friend had replied to him. And
leaving the table of `the sorceress,' he approached the roulette table and
placed a franc upon the red color. He lost. He then tried the black with
a five franc piece.
`Single-O red!! drawled out the banker, as he drew his five franc piece
to add it to a pile of silver at his right hand.
Ellis again tried the black with a modest franc and won! Thrice in sucession
he won, and then seven times in succession lost, until he had but a
single five franc piece remaining. With this he resolved to return to the
green table and desperately venture it there! Frank was still playing, and
to his surprise he saw before him a pile of silver and gold amounting to no
less than a thousand francs. The countenance of the winner was flushed,
and he was so absorbed in the game that he paid no attention to the exclamation
of surprise and joy, with which Ellis greeted his success. The latter
glanced at the stake he had just laid down and saw that it was ten Napoleons!
`Monsieur, vous etez bien mechant!!' said the bankress with a smile, as she
counted out ten Napoleons from the heap before her, and shoved them, with
an air of inimitable grace, towards him. `You win, Monsieur; you see I
am not so dangerous as you imagine.' And her eyes sought his in vain to
draw a returning glance. A shade scarcely perceptible passed across her
face. She saw that the young American was less susceptible than the hundreds
of young Frenchmen, who had sacrificed themselves to her shrine.
`What, fifty guineas? Monsieur is becoming bold!' she said, as Winter
placed this stake upon the board.
He did not open his lips. He watched the cards with intensity. The
pearly fingers, the moulded arm, might have been a cunning machine of
ivory for dealing, but for any impression they made upon him. He had
nerved his soul to the task. He had barred his hand over with gold. Every
susceptible emotion was hid behind a defence that was impregnable—a
ferocious feeling of avarice! To win money! To heap gold to gold, silver
to silver was his only idea! The feeling had come suddenly upon him as
he began to win, like an inspiration from a demon! His face was dark!—
its expression sharp and severe! He looked twenty years older than he
really was, and the closed lips and steely eye were fearful to look upon in
one so young and with a form so noble.
The cards flew from her fingers, and the seventh time in succession the
bankress was a loser, the player a winner!
`Cela est bien piguant, Monsieur,' she said, laughing, as she shoved the fifty
guineas she had lost over to his side of the table.
Winter made no reply. He swept with his hand the whole one hundred
together and laid it upon a single card.
-- 036 --
[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
`For Heaven's sake, Frank!' cried Ellis, `do not risk so large a stake.
It is five hundred dollars!'
`Leave me to manage my own play, sir,' said Frank sternly, without looking
up.
Ellis bit his lip and remained a silent spectator. He observed closely the
features of the bankress to see if he could discover any anxiety as to the
result. It was collected, and a half-smile rested upon the beautiful mouth.
If she felt any chagrin she did not manifest it.
`Monsieur is winner! Quelle honte! que cela est vilain!' she said, sweeping
towards him a hundred guineas. For the eleventh time he was winner!
`Cela est bien mal a vous, Monsieur!' she said with a short forced laugh
and a graver look than she had shown.
`Now, Winter, in the name of all that is good, stop!' said Ellis, laying his
hand upon his arm. `You have won five thousand dollars clear! This will
pay your expenses to Paris and London and home. Don't play again. It is
impossible luck should keep to your side twelve times in succession!'
`I shall venture this once. If I win I will stop. If I lose I shall have to.
Mademoiselle, c'est ta douzieme fois!'
`I warn you,' said Ellis, deeply moved.
`Silence, sir! I am not dependent on you!'
`You forget, Winter, that if I am dependent on you for money, I am at
least a gentleman!' said Ellis, darkly.
`You should then let me do as I please,' answered Winter, in a sort of
apologetic tone. `I dislike to be interrupted. Mademoiselle this is the
twelfth time I am your winner!'
`C'est abominable! j'en suis furieux!' she said, with an effort to laugh
gracefully; but Ellis, who had been a little mollified by Winter's words,
closely regarding her, saw that her dark eyes were full of an angry light.
`I stake the one thousand guineas!' he said, in a calm voice, as he laid
one of them, to represent the whole, upon one of the cards arranged upon
the table. The bankress dealt with a less rapid hand. She closely regarded
each card as it appeared upon the surface and examined it, ere it was
thrown off! Ellis looked on with the most eager feelings. Winter regarded
the dealing with outward calmness; but the expression of his restless
eye betrayed his intense inward anxiety as to the result. His gaze seemed
spell-bound upon the little gold cover as it one after another exposed the
faces of the cards she turned up. There were others who had been drawn
around the table who looked on with scarce inferior interest. The rumor
that a young foreigner was winning with a wonderful series of successes
from the enchantress, drew to her board all who were not engaged in play,
and two or three bankers whose tables were not occupied.
`Monsieur is winner!' said the bankress, with a cold smile and a pale
cheek; and, instead of sweeping the gold towards him, she cast fluttering
towards him, a note on the bank of France for the amount of twenty-five
thousand francs.
Frank had now before him on the table fifty thousand francs, or something
more than ten thousand dollars! He paused a moment, while murmurs
of surprise run round among the spectators, not at the sum won, for it
was not large for that place, but at the surprising uniformity of the winner's
good fortune. Twelve successive winnings were without a parallel!
`The game waits, Monsieur,' said the bankress, in a deep tone that drew
every eye upon her. But the tone was all. Her face was as radiant as ever—
her smile as winning—her eye as glorious in its beauty. These outward
expressions she could re-assume; but her voice was beyond her
control, and its depth betrayed the emotions which she experienced. `Will
Monsieur stake?' she said, with a winning smile.
`Fly from her, for the sake of Heaven!' cried Ellis hoarsely in his ear.
`You are well off now!'
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[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]
`I mean to be better! I mean to break the bank!' said Winter in a low
determined voice.
`You will be ruined.'
`You will be the sufferer if I am,' he answered with a slight sneer as he
turned away from him.
`If I don't humble this fellow's haughtiness, then I am mistaken in the
character of my own spirit. He has his words now, and they are free
enough; but I do not mean to bear them always. I will keep quiet and bear
with him for the present, for he is of service to me; that is so long as he
has money. But I will repay him yet for his insults. There will a day come
when I shall be avenged upon him! I will await it patiently!' The patient
young gentlemen's reflections were interrupted by a general shout of surprise,
and the exclamation,
`La treizieme!'
`Monsieur est avide,' she said, as she handed him a bank note for the fifty
thousand francs he had won.
`A hundred thousand francs in all!' cried Ellis, forgetting his sullenness
in his delighted surprise. `Play no more!'
`Does Monsieur play?' asked the bankress eagerly, her passions rising
up from within, and darkening, like the shadow of a storm cloud upon a
fair landscape, the beautiful features.
`Oui, Mademoiselle,' answered Winter, with an air singularly composed.
She smiled, but it was like the lightning flashing from the cloud.
`What will be Monsieur's stake?'
`The pile before me,' he answered calmly.
`It is impossible there should be a quatorzieme!' exclaimed two or three
young Frenchmen by Frank's side.
`You are a fool if you venture the whole sum again on a single chance,'
cried an Englishman who had watched the play with interest.
`What does Monsieur please to bet?' asked the bankress, raising her
voice and sending a displeased glance around the table.
`The stake is there, Madame!' answered Frank firmly.
She took the gold box of cards up in her hands. Her lovely cheek was
colorless. Her hand nervously clasped the lid. With a slow, yet still in an
elegant and graceful manner, she told of the little parti-colored messengers
of Fortune. The spectators looked on and watched the turn of each card
with breathless suspense. Ellis gazed with his teeth set and his hands
clenched, for he looked upon his friend as a beggar again, and of course he
would be one also; for his own fortunes rose and fell upon the ebb and flow
of his friend's purse. Winter was the only one perfectly calm. The eyes
of the bankress fairly blazed with exulting anticipation! for who could believe
it possible that there should be a quatorzieme? Fourteen successive
winnings at faro had never been known!
`La quatorzieme[1]!' cried a dozen voices in the strongest accents of surprise
and gratification.
`Monsieur is winner,' she repeated in a husky tone of voice; and counting
out notes for a hundred thousand francs, she placed them in his hand.
`Prenez garde pour une autre fois!' she said, menacingly, in a low half-tone
to herself, as she shuffled and replaced the pack in the box. The sympathies
of all the gentlemen were with the winner. His extraordinary success
won their admiration and respect. It was the first time `the Enchantress,
had been foiled. Winter remained perfectly self-possessed. His coolness
and equanimity increased with the loss of her own temper. It was
evident she was becoming anxious. She had been losing steadily and with
progressive arithmetical ratio the last twenty five minutes. All her energies
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[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
were aroused. She cast aside the arts of beauty and the powers of fascination,
which had been the most potent weapons against the success of others.
She felt that the young man before her was impenetrable. She gathered
her energies and her strength. Her soul was on fire. Her brow contracted
with a fierce scowl. Her lips were compressed and the color had
fled from them. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes distended with
blood. The veins of her temples were swollen, and her arms, lately so
rounded and beauteous, were uneven with the strong sinews, interrupting
the harmony of the moulded surface as she grasped the cards with nervous
energy. Her eyes burned with a fierce light, and the spirit of avarice, fear
and angry disappointment, sat upon her features, now no longer beautiful,
but hideous and revolting.
All gazed upon her with surprise and not without awe. Winter saw and
smiled with proud defiance. She would have closed the bank, but in her
heart she was sure there could not be a seizieme!
Slowly she arranged the cards, and was about to place them in the box,
when one of the bankers who had been drawn to the table said to her in a
whisper,
`Madame, take a new pack.'
On the instant she dashed the cards beneath her feet, and placed a new
pack beneath the lid. She then looked up, and met with a fierce look of
defiance the eyes of her antagonist. There was something devilish in the
expression she fixed upon him; and Ellis, with the superstition of the sailor,
was positive the spirit of the devil inhabited her beauty, like that of an angel,
next deformity like that of hell! But it was not needful to go to superstition
to account for this change. It was founded in the depth of human
passions; the good and the evil lie equal in the unsanctified heart.
`Does Monsieur bet again?! she demanded sternly, and with a look that
told her confidence in winning. For who, unless aided by an evil spirit
could win the seizieme?'
`The two hundred thousand!' coolly answered Winter, placing a Napoleon
to represent the large sum upon a single card.
A murmur of surprise went round the circle, followed by breathless silence.
No sound could be heard but the sharp click of the cards, as one
after another she turned them from the top of the box.
`La seizieme!' exclaimed the bankress, springing to her feet, with a face
as black as midnight.
`La seizieme!' thundered the spectators, and loud applause filled the
salon.
Ellis stood by in silent astonishment, perfectly confounded. He said not
a word. Every eye rested on the winner with wonder and curiosity.
`El diable!'
`Mephistophole!'
`Il est admirable!'
`Est incroyable!'
These and other expressions of surprise flew from lip to lip. By this time
all the persons in the hall were surrounding the green table, and scanning
Winter with deep interest. No one really believed him to be the devil,
though wondered they how, except by his assistance, he could thus, sixteen
times in succession, command the infinite chances of numbers!
The expression upon the face of the bankress was fearful! She made
no effort to disguise her emotion and furious disappointment. In a loud
tone she called for wine, and filling a large goblet she drank it off, and once
more took her place at the board. The expressions of satisfaction, visible
upon the face of all, except those of the other bankers, did not conciliate
her feelings of rage and disappointment. The triumph over her was felt as
a personal victory by all the gentlemen present, scarcely one of whom had
not been in a more or less degree her victim.
eaf173.n1[1] The Fourteenth.
-- 039 --
CHAPTER VII.
A Night in the Salon d'Hercule. The wonderful Successes of
our Hero. A tragic Termination to the Scene. The Arrival
and Letters. The Disappointment.
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
A crisis had now arrived in the play and the interest of the spectators became
intense and feverish. There were dark faces with fierce mustaches
and glittering eyes thrust towards the table, nervous hands moving in rapid
gesticulations, and deep murmuring voices. The bankress sat silent and
motionless as a statue of marble; her eyes fixed upon the calm countenance
of young Winter. A concentrated light burned in her eyes, and a
stern defiance mingled with fear, was stamped upon her rigid features.
Who could he be who had thus humbled her power? What might was his
who could thus control the fate of chances! To her mind he seemed a supernatural
person, sent to punish her avarice which had slain so many a
noble youth like himself. She sat silent, leaning upon her silver wand. The
calm unmoved face of Winter, presented a striking contrast to her own.
It wore a look of dignity and self-possession which such extraordinary successors
instinctively gave to him, and there was an expression of calm decision
about his mouth which told that he felt within him confidence and
power. It is success that hegets success.
The murmurs of surprise had not yet subsided, which followed his last
winning, when he raised his eyes and fixed them firmly upon the pale aspect
of the bankress, who was regarding him with a look as if she felt he
held her destiny in his hands.
`I am ready, Mademoiselle!' he said in an even tone that was singularly
marked amid the buzz of those around him; for each player had now got
to feel the affair to be his own, and to take an absorbing interest in every
step that should now be taken. Every young man had his `revenges,' and
Winter seemed to them the chosen instrument. But all trembled for the
result; now that a single false bet would restore to the bank all it had lost,
and hurl their champion from his throne of power. They saw that he was
bold, resolute and cool, and that he would stake the whole four hundred
thousand francs upon a single card as he had done before! The excitement
of their feelings therefore rose in proportion to the enormous risk he
was about to make. One spoke and advised him to play but half; another
to stake but a fourth of the sum; a third counselled him to cease playing, for
he had sufficiently avenged his predecessors.
`Messieurs,' said Winter, turning round to them with a bland smile, `I am
obliged to you for your interest in my playing; but I beg you will leave the
game to my own hands. I assure you, you will not regret the issue!'
The tone of independence in which he spoke, was responded to by a low
murmur of applause to which succeeded a deep and expecting silence.
Every eye was alternately fixed upon the countenance of the successful
player and that of the bankress. She had not replied to his remark, that he
was ready. Her lip was agitated and her hand trembled.
`Winter,' cried Ellis, taking his arm and speaking with deep earnestness,
do not bet again. Be satisfied with the enormous sums you have won!'
`Let Monsieur bet!' cried the bankress in an imperious tone, and with a
flashing glance; for she thought she had seen a hesitation in his manner as
he was spoken to; and though trembling for the result, she felt she would
rather risk La dix-septieme than he should cease playing, with four hundred
thousand francs winning, in his possession.
-- 040 --
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
`I shall bet again, Mademoiselle!' answered the young man very positively.
`It is impossible there should be a dix-septieme!' she said faintly, as if to
reassure herself; for his boldness and air of confidence took away her own.
She glanced round at the anxious countenances of the group of bankers
who had with the players deserted their tables, to gather around hers.
`It is impossible there should be la dix-septieme!' they answered all together.
`Impossible!' she answered, with more assurance.
`Is Mademoiselle ready?' asked the young American, resting his eyes upon
her marble visage, where agitated passions were working every feature.
`Courage, madame!' cried several bankers.
`I fear not, Messieurs,' she responded in a hoarse accent. She took a
fresh pack of cards, carefully shuffled them and was about placing them in
the gold box. There was a hushed silence. The beating of men's hearts
could be distinctly heard.
`I will take the cards for a moment also,' said Winter; and extending his
hand, he received them from hers, while she looked as if she would have
struck a dagger at his heart. He had seen a rapid glance exchanged between
her and one of the bankers who had handed her the cards, and he
suspected foul-doing. He was not mistaken. On running over the cards
he found that the card on which he had betten—the ace of clubs—was not
in the pack. There was a murmur of indignation on this discovery; and
casting the cards upon the floor, the young winner took a second pack,
which after examining he placed upon the marble before her. She also
closely examined the cards and then closed the lid of the box upon them.
Holding it in her left hand and her right finger and thumb, prepared to off
the first card, she looked up. Her looks were like those of a fiend in female
form. Winter involuntarily shrunk from the gaze she fixed upon him.
Phrenzied hope, fierce despair, rage, horror and hatred were all mingled
in it.
`What does Monsieur bet?'
`Four hundred thousand francs!'
`Bien!' she answered, and prepared to lift the card.
`But I must first know that I am betting against the full value of my
stake!' he said firmly. `Show madame, that your bank has this capital!'
With a sneer of infernal rage and malice she said, opening a box by her
side:
`There, Monsieur, is a package of notes containing one hundred thousand
francs. There are certificates of deposite in bank, to the amount of
two hundred and fifty thousand more. Here upon the table are rouleaus of
gold to make up the sum!'
`I am satisfied. Place the notes, certificates and rouleaus there, opposite
my own. Now madame, I am ready!, The silence of death followed his
words! Slowly yet with the strong energy of despair, the bankress one by one
dealt off the cards from the top of the box. A cannon might have been discharged
in the salon, and the spectators would not have known it. Every
eye followed the cards upon the issue of which was to depend the fate of
the bank—the power of the enchantress.
All at once she paused in her dealing off; and looked round with a
ghastly empresse, effort to smile, as she said inquiringly, in a hollow tone:
`It is impossible Messieurs, there should be la dix-septieme!'
There was no reply. Winter smiled proudly. He was not sure of success,
but he seemed to himself borne onward by some irresistible destiny.
He thought not of losing! He was calm, confident, self-possessed.
`It is impossible that there should be the seventeenth!' she said repeating
her words to herself, and then slowly resumed the dealing. Winter could
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
not help feeling emotion, as the cards one by one were taken off, and each
instant the crisis of his fate and that of the bank drew nigh.
Suddenly a piercing shriek from the bankress confirmed what all eyes at
the same instant beheld. The winning card—the fatal ace of clubs! had won!
La dix-septieme had broken the bank!
There was a moment's silence, as if from awe and astonishment among
the spectators. It was followed by a loud shout of triumphant applause, in
which were mingled the curses of the co-bankers. The ruined bankress
rose from her chair, placed the four hundred thuosand francs upon the pile
which lay before the winner, and then quicker then lightning, plunged a
small knife into her heart! The face and hands and a heap of gold of the
victor were sprinkled with her red life-blood, and she falling headlong forward,
clutched wildly at the notes and coin she had lost; and sinking upon
them gathered them in her arms, in a dying embrace, and so expired!
A cry of horror thrilled all present, and the triumph of the victor was
clouded by this fearful tragedy. Winter gazed upon the corpse, with a feeling
of terror, and after it was removed, he stood in silence surveying his
wealth, stained with the blood of her who had once possessed it. He felt
no exultation—no delight. A stupor seemed to seize upon him and to leave
him for a few minutes incapable of appreciating what had transpired. The
excitement (for his excitement while playing, had been intense though inward
nor outwardly visible) had passed, and left him in a state of mind like
vacancy. He was roused by Ellis.
`Come, Winter, let us leave this place! I will assist you in taking away
your money; and one of the bankers here will give you bank notes for this
heap of gold. You have won at least one hundred and ninety thousand
dollars!'
`Well?' responded Winter absently.
`Dont yield to such feelings. The girl has met a just retribution! She
has caused the death of half a dozen! You have only avenged them!'
`What have I to do with avenging them?' he demanded in a husky voice,
his hand resting upon the table, and his eyes fixed upon the pile of blood
stained gold he had won.
`Monsieur's mind seems insensible,' remarked a Frenchman to Ellis; `it
is too great a fortune to be borne.'
`I am not overcome by my gains, Monsieur,' said frank solemnly; `but
I am overcome with the consciousness of having been the murderer of that
female!'
`Ah, parbleu, Monsieur!' answered a French officer near, shrugging his
shoulders and twisting fiercely his mustache; `She was a murderess! She
has perished well. You have our gratitude, Monsieur!'
`Yes, and I have the weight of her blood upon my conscience! Ellis.'
`My dear friend!'
`I will touch none of that gold! 'Tis the price of her blood!'
`You are mad!'
`No I am perfectly sane!'
`You will not leave it!' he cried in astonishment.
`No I will not have it either! But I will not profit by it! I shall come
here to-morrow night. I must lose it again, I cannot keep it! 'Tis her life!
I have slain her, Ellis, and I feel I shall not rest while I retain one franc I
have won from her!'
`You will take it up?'
`No, touch not a coin! 'Tis bloody! Let it lay. I will get rid of it at once
and relieve my soul! Ho, Messieurs bankers!' he shouted to the four or five
managers of the salon. `Here, upon the table are eight hundred thousand
francs! I am here ready to stake it all upon one card, if you will accept my
bet!'
-- 042 --
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
`You are a fool or mad,' cried Ellis; and without being observed by his
friend, prudently resolving not to lose all, he transferred to his person a
note for five thousand francs; the possession of which the more easily reconciled
him to the loss of the rest.
`I am acting as my own friend in doing this,' he answered quietly. `Had
she not killed herself, I should have retained the money. I cannot do it
now Ellis. I wouldn't purchase a cigar with a single sou of what I have
won. It shall go back to the bank! I will have no bloody coin.
The bankers after conversing apart a few moments, approached him.
`Monsieur,' said the chief; `we are willing to accept the bet, provided
you will bet on any other card than the ace of clubs!'
`I will bet upon the knave, messieurs.'
The cards were arranged. The bankers took their stations around their
head. The players gathered about the table, looking upon Winter in the
light of an insane man. All eagerly watched the result.
`La premiere!' shouted the banker as the cards announced the bank the
winner; and taking the silver wand in his hand, he struck the heap of gold
and notes before Winter, to mark them as his own.
`Come, Ellis! I am relieved of a great load. Let it go! We are, as
when we came in—save—save that girl's life!'
`Ellis made no reply. He was angry and disappointed. He had hoped
to share a large portion of his friend's winnings. In imagination he saw
himself revelling in wealth, the commodore of a gun-sloop of his own, roving
the seas at will, seeking adventure. These visions were dissipated.—
He had discreetly got a note of value into his hands, to keep it from being
swallowed up in the vortex into which the remainder had been hurled by
Winter, and this in a measure relieved his mind. But in his heart he cursed
his friend for his folly.
Together they left the hall. Both were silent. They passed through the
long mosaic paved passage and were let into the street by the old janitor.
It was already dawn of day; and the sight of the crimson east told Winter
that he had spent a night in play. It had seemed to him but a few moments.
It appeared to him now, all like a dream. The playing; the winning seventeen
times in succession; the vast amounts won; the suicide of the bankress,
all appeared like a dream when it is passed. He found it difficult to
realize it; and was about to ask Ellis if such things had taken place, and he
had been in reality an actor in these scenes, when the sight of blood upon
his wrist-bands, sealed their reality.
`I am an assassin!' he cried, covering his face with his hands.
Ellis made no remark. He hated him, and was willing he should be as
miserable as he chose to be. He made no attempt to alleviate his feelings.
He inwardly rejoiced at his sufferings. He assumed too, a different air.
He walked by his side with a bolder and more haughty tread. He threw off
his air of dependence and money-needy air. He began to feel himself so
superior that he was deliberating whether he had not best show his indignation
and contempt by cutting his acquaintance; and he felt in his pocket
for the safety of the note for five thousand francs he had prudently possessed
himself off; well knowing it would be long before, among so much money,
it would be missed.
They walked along together for some time in silence. By degrees Winter
recovered his serenity. The cheerful sun-rising, the fresh morning
breeze, the songs of birds, all revived him. He resolved to banish his
feelings and regard the past night as a dream. He felt no regret for the loss
of his money. He still felt he had done right. A feeling of pain remained
for the death of the bankress; but he reasoned upon it; and as he did so, acquitted
himself of the act, for which, in the first moments of the fearful deed
he had become his own accuser.
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Their way, for they did not proceed at that early hour at once to the hotel,
led them round by the ramparts near the quay. Here Winter stopped,
and taking off his cap, let the sea breeze blow upon his head. The scene
was beautiful, gilded with the morning beams. The distant sea shore like
silver, bore many a snow-white bark upon its bosom. The hills around
were verdant and diversified with villas, convents and towers; the harbor
was studded with ships of war and commerce, decked with the flags of all
nations, and riding at anchor, or getting under way; moving in various directions.
A thin veil of blue smoke rested above the water, upon which it
had settled from the discharge of the sun-rise guns from the batteries and
ships of war. The blue sky above was without a cloud. The branches of
a few orange trees that grew upon the rampart, rustled whisperingly in the
air. All was peaceful, and insensibly drew the young man out of himself
and his gloomy thoughts. He walked apart from Ellis, who was busily cogitating
within himself, how he should get his five thousand franc bill exchanged,
and leave Marseilles unknown to his friend.
As Winter paced up and down the rampart, his thoughts stole insensibly
homeward; and the image of his mother and of Grace Ellingwood became
vividly present. Tears came into his eyes mingled with sweet emotions,
over all of which rose a sense of degredation and unworthiness. Such had
been his infatuation for play, that not even the oft recurring recollection of
Grace, could restrain him. He felt he was doing that which she would condemn,
and yet he blindly pursued the course which would degrade him in
her eyes as well as in his own. But he felt that he departed from her motives
of integrity and truth of character, by resigning his commission, and
engaging in a duel. It was perhaps this feeling that made him reckless of
what followed. He however secretly determined that if Grace forgave his
resignation, he would check at once his course and live worthy of her esteem.
Every day since he had been in Marseilles he had said at least once,
`When I hear from Grace, and my money comes, I will stop and reform.
I will leave Ellis, and live so as to respect myself; for now I feel degraded!'
The recollection of these resolutions now came befere his mind as he
paced the rampart.
`Yes,' he said firmly; `if Grace forgives me I am regained to myself and
to her! If she censures me and casts me off, I am reckless of consequences!
For her I live; without her—without her approbation, life were worthless!
character of no value to me!'
Strong as the vice of gaming had taken hold of young Winter; he was
not a profligate. False independence, and love of play were his chief errors.
But as these are ramified by so many vices, he was in danger of becoming
a slave to all. The tender remembrances of Grace, only prevented him from
falling as low as Ellis, whom he despised for his open licentiousness. But
as yet, Frank, though erring greatly, had not yet fallen. He was upon his
feet and yet might retrieve himself. The fearful events of the past night
had appalled—confounded him, and given him a terrible lesson. Play had
become loathsome to him. He felt he could never again cross the threshold
of a gambling hall. He shuddered as he recalled the exciting and horrible
scenes that had transpired in the Salon d' Hercule.
`There are the stars and stripes, flying on the signal tower of our hotel,
exclaimed Ellis. `There is a yankee in the offing!'
Frank started; and glancing at the American colours, cast his eyes seaward.
A ship was visible about eight miles distant, standing towards port.
`It must be the vessel signalized; with a glass we could make out her
flag,' said Ellis eagerly.
`Let us return to the hotel and look at her through the spy-glass,' answered
Winter with animation. `It is no doubt the ship expected by the
merchants.'
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[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
They crossed the rampart, descended a broad flight of rough steps of
stone, and crossing the quay soon reached the hotel. Ascending to the
tower, they saw that the ship showed American colours, and a private signal.
One of the merchants present, recognized the signal, and said the ship
was the `Hercule,' from Boston.
At this name, Winter started, and the scenes in the hall d' Hercule flashed
painfully upon his mind. The wind being fair and strong, the ship rapidly
approached, and in an hour after Frank reached the hotel; she was at
anchor in the port. Accompanied by Ellis, he took a boat and boarded her.
On asking for letters for himself; three were handed to him. One of them
was in Grace's handwriting; the other two from his mother and Pratt Parker
the agent.
He did not wait to open them there; but going on shore he excused himself
to Ellis, and sought his room. Closing the door, he seated himself and
first opened his mother's letter. He did not so much dread her reproof, and
he felt that her letter would probably give him a key to the tenor of that
which Grace had written, and which he feared to open.
`This letter from his mother was full of kindness and anxiety for his health,
with earnest wishes for his speedy return, to take charge of the home-stead.
It made no allusion to his duel or resignation; but was throughout, characterised
by the fond spirit of a weak and indulgent mother. It contained a
postscript, saying, that she had written to Mr. Parker, to remit the two
thousand dollars he wrote for; but said not a word about his drafts, or having
overdrawn the amount in her agent's hands. She thought nothing of moment,
so that her son was left to her alive and well. Money held no place
in the mother's heart by the side of her maternal love.
`Good, kind, noble woman! I am not worthy of your affection. I have
abused your kindness. But I will do better. Now for Grace's letter. He
tore the seal and began to read with a flushed brow and deep emotion. For
this letter, the reader is referred to a preceeding chapter.
He read it through without raising his eyes. He then dropped it from
his hand, and leaning his head upon his arm, remained silent, pale and
thoughtful. He was deeply moved;—many passages in the letter had woundhis
self-love; others had displeased him;—many had pained him. He was
torn by mixed and conflicting feelings.
He took up the letter and read it again. He cast it from him with an expression
of contempt; he rose up and paced his chamber. His brow was
angry and his countenance excited.
`Yes, she has learnt all. She has suspected, and now knows me as I am!
She reproves—she censures—she advises! She talks to me about my drafts!
What is it to her? She is bold! Confounded be the grey head of that Pratt
Parker, for communicating with my mother! So she and Grace know all!
This is vexing. She forgives, and yet condemns me! I do not like the tone
of her letter. She assumes too much authority! I cannot see how she can
blame me for my resignation! I see we do not think alike. I do not like the
tone of her letter! It is kind and cutting. It pretends to be friendly, and
yet lashes me! I will not submit to dictation. If she loved me she would
see good in all I did. My acts would be law to her. I am vexed; I am
displeased! I will write and tell her so! Yet, I have no reason to be. The
truth is, I feel that I am all in the wrong, and justly condemned by her. I
have too much pride to confess it even to myself, much less to hear the
truth from others. Grace is right and I am wrong. But I will not write and
tell her I am wrong; I will not write to her at all; I will wait until I see her.
I shall hasten my tour homeward. Now I have money in the agent's letter,
I shall leave at once by the next dilligence. Let me see what sort of funds
Mr. Parker has enclosed.'
He broke the seal of the agent's letter. He carefully unfolded it, and, to
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his surprise and alarm, he beheld neither on the upper nor under side of
the fold, any enclosure of draft or bills. The letter was empty and contained
but a few lines.
Boston, October 18, 18—
To Mr. Francis Winter,
Your favor of August 1st, drawing on me at sight for two thousand dollars,
was duly received, and contents duly made known to your respected mother,
there not being funds in my hands sufficient to meet it. Your other drafts having
exhausted all but six hundred dollars, by a mortgage on Meadow Farm, and
forward it to you. I effected the mortgage, and was about to enclose you a bill
on Paris for two thousand dollars, when intelligence reached me that your
house had been destroyed the day before yesterday by fire. I shall therefore
wait further instructions from your mother before I remit; as doubtless she
may be put to straits for means under this calamity. Trusting, when you have
got through your wandering abroad, you will return to her who protected your
infancy, I am sir,
Yours, with due respect,
Pratt Parker.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Interview. The sailing of the Brigantine. The opening of
the Plot. The details of the daring Plan of Ellis.
The rage, grief and disappointment, which this last letter produced in
the bosom of the young man, it would be difficult to describe. His disappointment
in not receiving the money was intense, for he had not twenty
francs in the world. His rage against the agent was furious and terrible,
both for his omission to remit and his concluding advice. His grief at the
loss of the homestead was deep and heartfelt. It was evident that it must
have been destroyed within a day or two after his mother's letter had been
written and sent to Boston for the ship. The cold brevity with which Mr.
Parker had mentioned it deepened his solicitude. What had become of his
mother?
`If she had been injured he would have mentioned it! She has probably
found a home with Grace—and I am here, an outcast as it were—living by
gambling, and the blood of my superior officer upon my hand, and that of
the life of that murdered girl upon my soul! I could curse myself! But
what is to be done? Money! I have no money! I am a beggar! I will
perish ere I approach another gambling table! I should see blood on every
coin and card as I did this morning! I think I had best give up at once and
turn villain! My mother's roof mortgaged for my gambling expenses! Well
may the angry flames seize upon it and consume the infamy of my act!
Oh, Grace! Noble and honest in mind and heart! How would you despise
me if you knew me as I am! I will think no more of you! I will not
bear in my blackened heart your pure image to tarnish it! Go free
and pure! Forget me and I—I will perish as I deserve!'
`Nay, my dear fellow,' said Ellis, leaning into the long door-like window
from the balcony, `not so bad as that! cheer up!'
`Sirrah, have you been listening?' cried Frank, striding towards him.
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`No, Winter, only I heard your last words that you would perish. I was
passing by your window on the balcony to see if you were in, and what news
you had got, when these words caught my ear.'
`Well; why should I not perish?' he answered bitterly, hanging his head
and dropping his hands in an attitude of utter despondency.
`Because there is enough in the world to live for. You have got bad
news?'
`Bad enough! No money!'
`That is bad. How happens it?
`Read that letter. It is from my agent!'
Frank darkly scowled with gloomy feeling, as his friend read the letter.
Ellis having closed it, folded it up and said in a gay tone,
`Well, that is unlucky; but with your luck at play you —'
`I shall never play more!' he said firmly and solemnly.
`Never play?'
`No; and unless you wish me to quarrel with you, never speak to me of
play again.'
`I don't want to quarrel with you Frank, but I'm bless'd if I don't feel
confounded like doing so for making this resolution.'
`It is written in blood upon my soul!'
`Well, what is to be done?'
`I care not!'
`That is the right spirit!
`Methinks you are unusually elated this morning, Mr. Ellis.'
`Oh, nothing particular. I was only going to propose that instead of taking
the diligence to Paris, we run down to Gibralter and thence home.'
`And why does this idea elate you?'
`I was'nt aware that it did,' answered Ellis, evasively.
`Don't talk to me of taking passage to Gibralter. I am without money.'
`Have you no money?'
`But twenty francs!'
`And last night worth nearly a million!'
`Don't mention last night!'
`I have money!'
`You!'
`Yes. You shall share it with me!'
`How came you by money?'
`I won it. Your mantle fell upon me. I have been playing and won
five thousand francs!' Here Ellis displayed a bag of gold into which he
had got his bill changed. `I will loan you if you will take passage with
me.
`I will not borrow. You may return me my loans Ellis.'
`It will be about a thousand francs in all.'
`Just as you please.
`I will count it for you on one condition.'
`I bind myself to no conditions,' answered Frank haughtily.
Ellis colored but suppressed his rising emotion. Winter, by his reply,
had unwittingly increased the hatred towards himself that was nourished
in this young man's bosom.
`I ask no condition then. But as you have no money and say you will
not play, and I have money and have no objections to getting more in the
some way, I will show my friendship for you by paying you over the one
thousand francs. There is the money. Now, you may comply with my
condition or not.'
`Name it.'
`There is a Mexican brigantine in port which has just discharged a valuable
cargo of cochineal and other freight, and sails in two days for
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Gibralter, and thence to Vera Cruz via New York. She is a fast sailer, and the
captain is a good fellow.'
`You know him then.'
`Yes. When I was in the Hudson we run him down off Key West. He
was then in a schooner trading between Matanzas and the main. We saved
him and his men, and took them into Tampico where we were bound. As
I was studying Spanish then, I talked with him a great deal to perfect myself
in the tongue, and so we became quite intimate. He is a little, lively,
talkative fellow, and professes great friendship for me. I met him on the
quay last week. He invited me on board and was most happy to see me. I
did not of course tell him I was not in the service now. He will give us
passage to New York for one hundred dollars a piece. Say, shall we go
with him?'
Frank was silent a few moments. He reflected that without money, as
he was, he could not pursue his original intention of going to Paris. He
thought of Grace and his resolution was taken.
`I will go with you, Ellis,' he said, grasping his hand.
`Done. We will spend to-day and to-morrow in making little outfits of
things we may need, and presents for friends at home. I will at once see
Capitan Florio Torrel, so that he may be ready for us. Good bye, Frank.
We will dine together with Torrel at the Cafe Elysee.'
`Bien!' answered Frank, gaily.
The day of the departure of the brigantine arrived, and the signal for getting
under-weigh was flying at her mast-head. Frank had purchased a portion
of fruit and some delicacies for home, all of which could be stowed in
his state-room. But with Ellis came on board several heavy boxes, one of
which he said contained a harp, and another a guitar, and another silks, and
a fourth books of rare authors.
`You are taking aboard quite a freight, Ellis, on your own account,' said
Winter, as he saw these heavy boxes hoisted to the deck and placed away
in the steerage, where alone he would permit them to be stowed.
`Yes. But I shall double my money on them in the States. It is a mercantile
adventure.
The anchor was weighed, the topsails flung loose and sheeted home, the
jib and trysail set, and with a brisk breeze blowing from the north-west, the
rakish looking brigantine moved gracefully from her mooring ground, and
went flying, like a bird loosed from its cage, down the harbor.
Winter stood at the stern of the brigantine as she gained rapidly an offing,
his eyes resting upon the towers and green hills and frowning fortresses of the
port he had left. His thoughts were melancholy, for he felt that he had passed
three months in that city in folly and guilt; that he had there lived the
life of a gambler, and there had nearly shipwrecked his moral being.
`Oh that I were once more in the condition and circumstances I was six
months ago,' he sighed involuntarily. I was then an officer in my country's
service, and had the esteem of my fellows. Now I have the blood of
a friend, and the life of a woman upon my hand and heart! I have wounded
my character by my rash resignation, darkened my fair fame by the duel
and have clouded forever my soul by the death of the young female. Accursed
be the hour that I first crossed the threshold of a gambling hell!
Now I leave these scenes behind me! Home is before me! Yet how
shall meet Grace! I dare not tell her all that has passed, and concealment
would make me feel a sense of degradation before her! I hate myself
already! I am unworthy of her regard of her friendship, of her pure love!'
`You are gloomy, Frank,' said Ellis, laying his hand upon his arm.
`I have little to make me merry.'
`We are once more upon the free blue sea! The dashing of the waves
is glad music to my ears. I feel exhilarated. Do you remember Byron's
fine lines.
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`O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless and our souls as free;
For as the breezes waft the billow's foam,
Survey our Empire and behold our home!'
`Byron wrote those lines to put into a Corsair's lips.'
`They are not the less beautiful. I feel, Frank, that I should like nothing
better than to be a corsair myself, with a fine set of fellows to command—a
fleet craft under my feet and the sea all before me.'
`It were no doubt an exciting life, Ellis; and when a man has thrown off
allegiance to his country, or has warred with his kind, become degraded by
evil acts, I am not surprised that he should follow it, if he love the sea.'
Ellis' eyes sparkled and his face became animated as he listened to
and watched the countenance of the speaker.
`What would induce you now to become a corsair, Frank?' he asked.
`You do not put this question to me seriously?'
`Upon my soul I do. Why should I not?'
`Am I an outcast? Am I degraded? Am I at war with my kind?'
`No. But yet you might command a craft and go on adventure. You
are rich—that is, you will have twenty thousand dollars when your mother
dies—.'
`Not so much. But what then?'
`You love the sea. You are no longer in the navy. Why not purchase
a snug clipper, arm and man her, and cruise for your pleasure up the Meditterranean,
or in the Gulf of Mexico and along the South American coast.
There would be adventure, and perhaps chance would throw into your way
some pretty fighting and not a little money.'
Frank looked steadily at his friend and searchingly scanned his countenance.
Ellis smiled.
`You are making out a pirate's career for me, Ellis.'
`No. I am only making out that of a gentleman of the sea! Suppose
you think of this. It is all folly about your going home to settle down to be
a farmer. Your spirit is too bold and active. You will never do it. Your
profession is the sea. Follow it.'
As Ellis spoke these last words with strong emphasis, he turned away and
walked forward, murmuring in an under tone to himself as he got beyond
hearing, `I have cast the seed! I do not know his temper if it will not
find soil to take root.'
Barton Ellis was a young man of no ordinary abilities, but vice and loose
principles had corrupted him. He was a good officer, a brave man, and possessed
a daring spirit. He was, also, a tactician, and poverty united with
profligacy, had rendered him so. He would stoop and degrade himself for
selfish ends, as he had done, while living on Winter's purse; but he stooped
only to rise again with hatred in his heart. He had resigned in the navy not
from attachment to Frank, though he professed this to be his motive, and so
artfully bound the young Midshipman to him with gratitude; but because he
knew he had been guilty of certain transgressions which would not fail to
transpire and bring him to a Court Martial and disgrace. He therefore took
judgment by the fore-lock and threw up his warrant, ostensibly to second
Winter in his duel. Frank did not know his real motives, and therefore felt
bound towards him by a tie that he felt he could not well sever, anxious as he
had been to do it; for he loved him not, both on account of his open vices and
his former affair with Grace. Yet being naturally of a generous and friendly
nature, Frank could not quarrel with him, without good cause, and as Ellis
withal had many agreeable qualities, and was his only friend in a foreign
land, their intimacy remained unbroken. Unprincipled himself, Ellis found
that his friend was a man of honor and high sentiment, with all his errors.
This he could not comprehend; for like many men of his moral obliquity,
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he thought if a person erred in one thing he must err in all. That to be a
gambler, one must be also and of necessity a profligate and sensualist. It is
true there was such a proneness to vice in Ellis' breast, that for him to have
been one and not all would have been indeed surprising. The affinity in
Frank's bosom was towards virtue, and the admission of one vice did not
corrupt the whole. The memory of Grace kept him from licentiousness,
and to wine and revels he had no inclination. False pride of character and
love of play were his two cardinal errors, But one error of character is dangerous.
In itself it may not ruin, but it may open the way to the admission
of others, till the whole heart is full, the whole man corrupt! If Frank had
not been a gambler, Ellis would not have dared to tempt him! the idea of
drawing him into the daring scheme he meditated would have been rejected
as soon as conceived. To be guilty on one point is, in the opinion of depraved
minds like that of Ellis, to be guilty on all; and it gives such men boldness
to tempt and drag to ruin those in whom they see one fault of character,
though it be but as a spot on the sun, only visible from the brilliancy which
contrasts it.
`A man who will play will do any thing,' thought Ellis to himself as he
planned his temptation; and he believed what he said.
They had been at sea three days. The fine qualities of `La Guerreadora,'
which was the name of the brigantine, were fairly tested. They had run
four hundred miles in that time with comparatively light winds. It was a
moonlight night, and the vessel was bowling away on a bowline at the rate
of nine knots. The blue sea sparkled around, and the stars sparkled in the
blue skies above. The seamen were grouped forward—eight in all—while
one was singing in a fine merry tone to the tinkling of a guitar. With their
red and blue caps, bare brown arms, striped shirts and white trowers, their
appearance in the silvery moon-beams was highly picturesque. Capitan Florio,
in a broad brimmed palm hat, a white round-a-bout, and tight blue pantaloons,
closely fitting his handsome legs, was walking up and down the quarter
deck, smoking a cigar, and occasionally trumming with his lips a note to
the air sung by the sailors forward. The helmsman, also, with a cigar in his
mouth and a small scarlet cap upon his head, was at his feet. Astern, seated
upon the taffrail, was young Winter; a little below him with his head level
with his breast, reclined Ellis. They had walked aft and sat down there only
a few moments before. Winter's face was pale and firm. It wore the same
singular expression which was stamped upon it while breaking the bank.
It was plain, therefore, that he was deeply moved and earnest. He was in
the attitude of listening to Ellis, who was saying in a low yet very positive
tone,
`Now that I have said so much, I will say more!'
`I will listen to you,' said Frank, calmly. `I wish to know what plan you
are meditating. It is, I fear, some bold project!'
`You shall know. I place in you my fullest confidence, Frank, for you
see it is my life I entrust you with if you deceive me!'
`I will listen, Ellis. I shall make no promises. You have sought me.
Thrice since we left port you seem to have been sounding my views of a
free life upon the sea. I confess I did not perfectly understand you till a
few minutes since, when, as I was admiring the free, race-horse velocity of
the brigantine, as she leaped over the waves, you surprised me by saying,—
`And this noble vessel can be OURS if you say the word!' Now we have retired
here beyond hearing, I wish you to open fully to me the scheme which
you have been hinting at.'
`You will not betray me, if you do not approve of it!'
`If I do not approve it, I will freely say so!'
`I will trust you. I am sure you will sustain me, for you shall be chief!'
`Chief?'
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`Not so loud! Though Don Florio doesn't speak English, he may know
some words! I will now explain to you what I intend. In a word,' here his
voice fell to the lowest audible tone, `I contemplate seizing this brigantine!'
`You jest!'
`I am not jesting, Winter! I am in earnest. The plan is perfectly feasible!
It is with this view I have been sounding you about a free life upon
the ocean wave! And you say you should like it!'
`But in my own purchased vessel, and to sail from port to port for pleasure
and love of adventure. I said not that I wished to be a pirate!'
`Don't use hard words, Frank! But it is the same thing in the end. You
would not have a free deck beneath your feet long, without doing something
else besides making a pleasure yacht of her. You'd take a fancy to chase an
Algerine trader, or come to quarters with a Tunis corsair! You'd be tempted
to take sides in some of the Spanish patriot fights, or bring a slaver to!'—
These would bring your hand in, and you would soon look upon all craft as
fair game to overhaul for your pastime!'
`You may be partly in the right, Ellis. It is a dangerous temptation!'
`Therefore, I propose that you meet the temptation half-way, and take it by
the beard, and at once set the free flag flying!'
`You are mad!'
`No. I am serious.
`Do you seriously propose to me to aid you in taking possession of this
brigantine?'
`Yes.'
Frank looked in his face steadily for a moment and was convinced. His
lips closed firmly, his eye lighted up, and his lips parted as if to reply. Suddenly
the expression of his face changed. It was as quiet and composed as
a child's. There was no visible emotion.
`Well, he said calmly; let me learn your plan.'
`Can I trust you?'
`You must do so if you wish me to join in it.'
`Well, I will trust you,' answered Ellis, slightly frowning, for he was not
satisfied with Winter's manner. `I will divulge it to you because I am satisfied
you will enter fully into it with me. My plan is this:—To seize the vessel
to night at twelve, just as the first watch is being released!'
`There are the captain, his mate, and eight men to overcome,' said Frank
quietly.
`No. Six of the men are on my side!'
Winter uttered an exclamation of incredulous astonishment.
`Hush! we shall draw attention. It is true.'
`And how did you effect this?' asked Frank, surprised at the extent to which
he had gone.
`It was all nicely settled on shore!' he said, smiling with an air of triumph.
`In Marseilles?'
`Oui, Monsieur!' answered Ellis, carelessly, `You know I and Don Florio
are old friends—'
`And so you conspire against him.'
`I have nothing against him—I conspire only against his vessel.'
`A nice distinction.'
`Very. I dined on board you know in port. Well, the very first thought
that occurred to me was, what a capital buccaneering craft she'd make!'
`Doubtless a very natural thought,' said Frank, ironically.'
To me quite so,' answered Ellis in the same tone, and trying to laugh.—
`Well once in my mind I couldn't get it out. So I let it stay and let it hatch
what it would. It so happened that when I got ashore, I met two English
sailors that had been in the Hudson when I was in her, and who had been
whipped and dismissed for something or other. I knew them at once. I
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spoke to them and took them into a cafe to drink. I sounded them, and found
they were ripe for any thing. I briefly gave them an outline of what I wanted,
and the next day I persuaded Don Florio to ship them, telling him they
were my countrymen, in place of two of his men whom I bribed to run
away!'
`And did he so?'
`Yes. They are forward, dressed like the other Spanish sailors.'
`I was sure that all of the crew could not be Spaniards. `Go on,' said
Winter, his eyes darkening and his lips compressed.
`The next day I watched my time, and when Don Florio's boat's crew pulled
me and him ashore, I asked him to let me give them wine while he went
to his merchant's. I took them to a cabaret, and there treated them, and made
myself easy with them. I soon found that three of them were finished desperadoes,
and only wanted a leader to perpetrate any mischief! The fourth
I did not confide in. I got him dead drunk and insensible, then made the
other three swear to be true to me! I got Florio to discharge the drunken
fellow, and in his place, by the aid of the two English sailors, I soon supplied
Don Florio with a new hand.'
`An Englishman?'
`No, a Frenchman, but a fellow of the same grain as these.'
`And these three men and the three you corrupted are now forward?'
`Yes. That fellow who is singing in that mellow voice, is the prince of all
of them.'
`Carlos?'
`The same.'
`This is a deep and boldly laid plot, Ellis,' said Winter, after a moment's
profound silence.
`It could not have been done better.'
`I give you credit. So this was your motive in being so much on board the
brigantine. This is the secret of your mysterious absences?'
`You have it.' answered Ellis. From the very first I resolved to take passage
in this brigantine only to seize her!'
`And to aid you in the enterprise you urged me to be your fellow passenger?'
`Yes; and I have no doubt when you learn all, you will join me. I don't
intend to shed any blood!'
`Oh no!' said Winter, sarcastically.
`All peaceably!' added the mutineer leader without noticing his peculiar
tone.'
`Peaceably!' repeated Frank, in the same immoveable manner.
`Very.'
`Very!'
CHAPTER IX.
The progress of the Conspiracy. The Treason. Ellis' Revenge.
The Plot thickens. The Crisis. The result of the Mutiny.
The young mutineer did not altogether like the manner in which his last
words had been repeated and emphasised, he let it pass without remark
and continued, in a very determined tone as follows:
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`My plan is bold, Winter, as you say. It shall be as boldly carried out.
I had a motive in forming this plot. I have not yet resolved. There are in
the run, forty-six thousand dollars in silver!'
`It is a large sum!' said Winter dryly, not without showing his surprise.
`Yes; and it was this that first suggested the idea, what a fine buccaneering
craft this would make. I at once resolved to take passage in her, and
if possible handle this money before it reached Gibralter! To this end I
formed all my plans: took all my steps. You see thus far I have been successful.
I did not reveal to you at Marseilles my intentions, for I was not
sure of you. I am not certain of you now; but I do not fear you even if
you will not join me!'
`Suppose I join you, what reward shall I have?'
`You shall have half the coin and command the brigantine! I will act
as your first! we will however consult together on every movement and enterprize!
'
`Give me the command?'
`Yes!'
`And half the gold?'
`Half to a dollar!'
`This is a new light in which to view the matter,' said Frank with a tone
of animation.
`I knew you would not be insensible to these arguments, my dear fellow!'
cried Ellis, pleased and surprised at the sudden change in his manner
and tone. `Yes, you are to have the command. The twenty thousand dollars
will be a fine lump for you too, but not much to one who can win two
hundred thousand in a night at faro!'
Winter's brow darkened. `Do not speak of that; it seems to me like a
a fearful dream! I hope to God I shall never realize it!'
`The twenty thousand pieces we can add to, by selling the brigantine, if
we choose, after we have done with her!'
`There is forty-six thousand dollars, and you speak of twenty thousand
as half of it!'
`The other six thousand I have promised to divide with the six men!'
`Oh, ah! It is right they should share.'
`Then you enter into it?' asked Ellis eagerly.
`I have doubts of success. Don Florio has arms in the cabin; you and I
are without weapons!'
`Come below with me,' said Ellis in a peculiar tone. Frank rose and followed
him.
`What, caballeros, so soon below to turn in?' asked the spanish captain,
as they passed him while he stood leaning upon the companion-way smoking.
`No, Senor. We shall be on deck shortly,' said Ellis. `You must sing
me that song yet you promised, of your own composition.'
`May de buena gana,' he answered laughingly. `I will tune my guitar forit!'
`I will send it on deck by the steward!'
`Gracias, Senor!'
Ellis on entering the cabin, bade a negro lad who was asleep on a rug, to
take his master's guitar on deck; and taking a lamp and conducting Winter
through the cabin into the steerage, he placed his foot upon a large box
near the bulkhead.
`What do you suppose this contains?' he asked in a low, yet exulting
tone of voice.
`A harp!'
`Yes, with hollow iron tubes for strings. It contains twelve muskets!'
`Is your plot so deep?'
`And this?' he said placing his foot upon the next.
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`You said a guitar.'
`They are two dozen cutlasses!'
`And what does this square box hold? not books?'
`No. Ball and powder!'
`And this?'
`Twelve pairs of boarding pistols!'
`You do not deceive me?'
`No!'
`I must confess my undisguised surprise, Ellis. I had not suspected any
thing like this. You have shown talent!'
`Ellis smiled and looked gratified. He then led the way back to the cabin.
Here he again addressed Winter, and now in a manner divested of all
doubt or concealment, he was satisfied that Winter would join him. He
did not question but that he had fully entered into the plot with him.
`You see, my dear boy, how nicely every thing is fixed. The men forward,
only wait my signal to rise upon the two men, while you and I bind
the captain and mate. We will shed no blood; we will put them in irons
below and carry them into some out of the way barbor, and put them
ashore. We will then run for Gibralter; ship eighteen more men after
our own heart, and purchase a long thirty-two for midships, which with the
four twelves now on board, will be all we shall want to make us formidable!
'
`Where do you intend to cruise first? asked Frank seeing that he passed.
`I thought of running to the coast of the United States, and see if we
couldn't fall in with some of the out-bound packets. They always carry
money.'
`Then you mean fairly to turn pirate?'
`That is a hard name for it Frank. I only mean to do a little fancy corsairing
you know.'
`But then I am to be captain!'
`So you are!'
`But suppose I object to this fancy cruising which seems to take your
fancy so?'
`Why—the—why you know I am to have a voice in the matter too!'
`Then I am to be only nominal captain!'
`No. If you join me, you of course will not object, for you will be in for
it as well as I!'
`That is true! I did not think of that!' There was a slight tone of irony
in his voice. `When do you propose I shall take command of the brigantine?
'
`To-night. Every thing favors us. I want to have the affair over, and
off my mind. The Englishmen are getting impatient. Some of them will
betray it unless we act promptly!'
`Then you depend on me?'
`To be sure I do!'
`Very well; you may depend on me,' responded Winter firmly.
`I knew I could!' answered Ellis with animation. `But to tell you the
truth, Frank, I have been doubting you till this very minute. You seemed
to fight shy!'
`It was natural I should wish to know my risks before hand! I did not
like to go forward without feeling my ground.'
`Well it is past the deep mark nine now, and we are both off soundings
for it! I will have the lids of the chests unscrewed and and all ready.'
`At twelve o'clock?'
`Yes, precisely!'
`And what is your signal?'
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`The last stroke of eight bells! Soon as it ceases, the men forward will
do their duty, and we aft—
`Do ours. Be assured I shall do mine, Ellis.'
`I dont fear you now, Frank! I knew you were mine! You had a sort
of virtuous moral way with you, but I knew you had the true metal in you
when you should be tried. I am satisfied we are kindred spirits, Frank.
To tell the truth I have had a little grudge against you for one thing and another;
but that is passed! we are friends now!'
Ellis grasped Frank's hand and warmly shook it as if sealing thereby
their compact. `Go on deck, Winter and get Don Florio to sing you his
song. It will keep him from hearing me in the steerage. Keep him busy;
we have but two hours now to the time.
`I will entertain him,' answered Frank, as he ascended to the deck.
Instead of speaking with the captain who was thruming his guitar and
practising his song; he walked aft and paced up and down the deck in
deep thought. At length as if his course had been determined on, he
approached Don Florio.
`Senor captain, do me the favor to let me hear your song. Please to
come aft where your voice will have more swell.'
`Donde esta el Senor Elles?'
`He is engaged in the cabin. I will hear your song in his place!'
`Muy bien Senor,' answered the captain taking his guitar aft.
`Now, Senor I will listen,' said Winter as he seated himself in the very
spot where Ellis had made known to him his plot; Don Florio being close
to him. In a clear manly voice the young captain of the brigantine, then
began his ballad.
When he had ended it, Winter praised it highly and then asked for, and
took his guitar from him and began to thrum the chords; while he was doing
so, he said in a low tone,
`Don Florio you are a brave man; Danger will not alarm you! Be composed
while I inform you of what menaces you and your vessel. I keep
sounding the guitar as you see, that Ellis may suppose I am engaged in
listening to your play. He has just revealed to me a plot to seize your vessel!
Six of the seamen forward are in it. The boxes he brought on board
contain arms. At this moment he is below opening them to supply his men.
He let me into the plot believing I would second him. I have deceived him
into the belief that I shall do so; But I am you see your friend. I join in no
crime of this kind. I will aid you in defeating the plot. Eight bells to-night
is the signal for the rising. Now you know all, Senor.'
Don Florio was confounded; he seemed to be incredulous. But the tone
and air of the young man were too serious not to impress him with the truth
of what he stated.
`Amigo mio!' he cried clasping his hands in his.
`Do not approach me nearer! he may come on deck. If he should suspect
me he would sacrifice us, for the arms and numbers are with him! We
must plot against him!'
`I will be guided by you Senor.'
`Then I think it best for us to let Ellis get every thing ready. I will go below
and aid him to avert suspicion. At a few minutes before the time, we
will be in the cabin; you come down and we will seize and bind him. We
will then with the mate arm ourselves, and the two men aft whose names I
know, who are not in the plot, arm them, and then rush forward and capture
the six mutineers who will be waiting for Ellis to hand them their arms.
We can in this way save the vessel. But first I must have your promise
that Ellis shall be put on shore unharmed. He made me his confidant and
I do not wish him to fall a victim to his trust in me; especially as there will
be no open act of mutiny!'
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`A very nice counter-plot, and very kind in Frank to let me off so easily,'
said Ellis to himself as he stepped back from the cabin window, through
which as he leaned out, he had heard every word of their conversation, they
being above the taffrail directly above his head and within a few feet of him;
and he heard more plainly, inasmuch as Winter had turned his face over the
stern while speaking, to prevent being everheard by the helmsman at his post.
It was Ellis's lively suspicions that led him, on hearing them walk aft, to step
back over the steerage, and lean out of the dead-lights, to listen if Winter
was likely to betray him; for notwithstanding his confidence expressed in
him, he had a secret misgiving. He had listened until the song of the Captain
was finished, and satisfied, was turning away to go to his work in the
steerage, when Frank's voice arrested his ear. He then listened attentively,
and was made acquainted with the treachery, or rather the virtue of his friend.
`It is fortunate I overheard, or I should have been finely betrayed,' he said,
with a flashing eye. Now Francis Winter look to thyself!'
He hurried into the steerage, and commenced taking the screws out of the
box containing the pistols. By the time he had opened it, Frank entered the
place. Ellis pretended to be so much engaged in his employment as not to
see him at first.
`If I had been Don Florio you would have been suspected!' said Winter
gaily.
`No. I should have told him I was taking them home on a speculation.
Are you sure he will remain on deck?'
`Yes, he is singing amorous ditties.'
`Then I will load these pistols while you open that box of sabres!'
`That I will do. I think we shall find no difficulty in carrying the plot
through. Don Florio is quite off his guard!'
`He will be taken quite by surprise! The screws turn easy you'll find. I
have loosened them on purpose.'
Frank opened the box of sabres, while Ellis loaded a pair of pistols, showing
the balls to Frank as he put them in. He soon loaded seven pairs, and
wrapping six of them carefully in canvass, he laid the seventh by him upon
the box.
`Now the box of muskets and pikes, Winter!'
Frank bent over to unscrew it, when Ellis, watching his opportunity, leaped
upon, seized him from behind by the throat and hurled him to the deck. Before
he could recover himself, thus taken by surprise, he placed his foot upon
his breast and a cocked pistol to his temples.
`Breathe aloud and you are a dead man! Stir a limb and it is the signal
for your death! I have overheard all, arch-traitor! I know all! I shall profit
by my knowledge.
Frank, regardless of the pistol, made a desperate struggle to throw him off.
Ellis, with a deep oath, struck him heavily with the butt of the pistols over
the temples and laid him senseless upon the deck.
`It is your own fault! But for alarming the captain I would have shot you
through the head. Now,' he said to himself, `now for action! There is not
a moment to loose! If Don Florio should call for Winter, all will be discovered
and the devil will be to pay. Now for these pistols and cutlasses to
my men!'
Taking the bundle of loaded pistols, wrapped in the canvass, and half a
dozen sabres beneath his arm, he passed forward without interruption, save
climbing over a few bales of silks. He came to the bulk-head of the forecastle
and struck against it. As all the men were on deck he was not heard. He
then knocked lightly upon the forcastle deck above his head. There was a
movement of feet, and the next moment he heard a man descending the ladder
into the forecastle.
`Waite!' called out Ellis, in a suppressed tone!
`Aye, it's Smith!'
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`Well, either of you! The whole affair is in the wind! What we do must
be done at once! Which plank of the bulkhead did you start?'
`This on the starboard side of the beam. Here we are!' added the man,
thrusting outward the upper end of the plank.
`Here are pistols, Smith—pistols and cutlasses. The pistols are loaded!
said Ellis, laying the weapons down in the opening. `Are the two outers
on deck?'
`Yes!' said Waite, appearing below.
`Get them to come down below, and take care of them with as little fuss
as possible.'
`It's their watch on deck, and besides they are shy of Waite and I.'
`Then you must let them look out for themselves.'
`How did they find it out?'
`By Winter! He turned traitor and told the whole. But I have him safe.
He is knocked on the head for awhile!'
`You should have blown his brains out,' said the man savagely. `If the
Captain knows it, why is he so quiet?'
`It was planned by Winter and him, that things should go on until near
the time, and then they would arm themselves after seizing me and capture
you!'
`And you heard it all?'
`Yes. Now arm yourself and go on deck, hiding your weapons under
the windlass, and wait till you see me on deck. No firing without resistance.
Send the others down to me and I will give them their instructions!'
The two Englishmen then took a brace of pistols and cutlass each, and hiding
them under their jackets, went on deck. In a few minutes, one at a time
the other mutineers appeared, received their instructions, armed themselves,
and returned on deck. One of the `outers,' as Smith had termed the two not
in the conspiracy, having heard the knock under the forward deck, and seen
the Englishmen start, and then soon after go below, had their suspicions already
awakened by previous whisperings among the conspirators, confirmed
that there was mischief brewing. They watched the issue. They then (the
while singing an air to deceive them) saw them ascend to the deck and there
speak aside to the three others, the fourth being at the helm, who one by
one also went below. Watching sharply they detected the point of a cutlass
protruding beneath the jacket of Carlos and glance in the moonbeams.
Interchanging glances, and a word or two, the two men simultaneously
sprang up with a cry as if in answer to an order given from the quarter-deck
and ran aft.
`Did you hear an order?' said the others to one another, seeing them starting
off.
`I heard none, and if I had I would not obey it,' said Waite, doggedly.
`Captain, every man forward is armed!' cried the men in breathless alarm.
`Then I am doubly betrayed!' exclaimed the Captain, believing Winter
had proved treacherous and suffered Ellis to arm the men; that he had
communicated the conspiracy only to prevent suspicion and discovery. He
bade the men follow him and flew below and seized his sword and pistols.
He then dashed into the steerage, where, by the light of the lamp the first
object he saw was Winter, seated upon the deck with blood upon his forehead.
The truth flashed upon his mind!
`All is lost! we are discovered, Captain! Defend your vessel!' he cried
faintly!
He could no where see Ellis, who was just leaving the bulk-head to return,
and believing him on deck, Don Florio rushed to arouse his mate with
the cry of `Motin! Motin! Mutiny! Mutiny!'
The man, a heavy iron-framed Mexican, leaped to the floor and seized his
cutlass. Seeing the Captain run from the steerage, and hearing the cry,
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Ellis knew that a crisis had arrived! He hurried along between decks,
with a pistol advanced and entered the cabin! The mate and captain had
already ascended the deck with the fierce cry of
`Muerto a los amotinadores!'
The next moment he was upon the deck! As his foot touched it he saw
the flash and heard the report of pistols and clashing of sabres forward.
He discovered at a glance that the captain and his mate, aided by the two
men, had boldly dashed at the mutineers without giving time for them to
unite! Fearing his party would give back he gave a loud and encouraging
shout and rushed forward, discharged his pistol at the mate as he turned and
advanced upon him. The shot took effect upon his brain! Without a cry
he fell forward heaving his length upon the deck. The captain now attacked
him with courage and skill, perfectly regardless of the others of the mutineers,
whom the two men were bravely keeping at bay.
`Muerto a la Motin!' cried Don Florio, as he struck at him with his sword.
Ellis caught the stroke upon his cutlass, and, drawing his second pistol,
fired and shot him dead! At the same moment the two brave seamen fell
covered with wounds, and five of the mutineers, for one had been run thro'
the body by the Captain, rushed aft with fierce shouts.
`The brigantine is ours!' cried Ellis, waving his cutlass in the air.
`Not if this ball flies true!' cried a voice behind him.
These words were followed by a bright flash and report of a pistol, and a
whizzing ball buried itself in the mainmast close at his ears. He turned and
saw Winter upon deck with a brace of pistols in his hands. At the instant
he beheld him, he discharged the second pistol, and the ball struck his hat
and knocked it to the deck. The mutineers rushed upon him to cut him
down, when Ellis arrested their weapons by interposing his cutlass.
`Let him live! He is ours!'
`He has betrayed us!' fiercely cried the Englishmen.
`If he dies now he cannot feel your revenge! Do you not know that death
will put him beyond your reach! We punish no man by slaying him; for
in killing him we inflict a momentary pain, and then place him beyond the
reach of vengeance. Let him live!'
`Let him live!' they cried savagely. `Live to satisfy our revenge!'
`Bind him, Carlos!'
`Si Senor!' answered the Spaniard, taking him below.
Winter made no resistance. He at once saw that death would be his
doom if he resisted. Life might bring with it escape!
`Now, my men, the brig is ours!' said Ellis, as Frank was led below.—
`You have behaved well. Clear the decks of these bodies! The deep sea
is a wide grave and asks no coffin to hide its dead! Waite, take the helm
and let her fill. She has been heaving herself to see the fray! Give her
nose again!'
The brigantine was once more put on her course, for in the melee the
helmsman had left his post and fled forward to join his associates, leaving
her to steer herself, when she came up into the wind, and as it was blowing
fresh, nearly carried away her top-masts; but in the confusion and tumult
this was disregarded. The mutineers went to work with alacrity to clear
the decks of the bodies of the captain, mate and three men, one belonging
to their own party, and to wash the blood from the planks. In a quarter of
an hour all traces of the conflict were removed. Three of the men now
went forward to assist in working the vessel, leaving Waite at the helm;
while Smith, appointed by Ellis as his mate, remained aft with him. These
regulations were arranged by Ellis with promptness, and obeyed by the
mutineers without a murmur, they all consenting at his suggestion, that the
division of the money should be put off until morning, and that, till then
things should go on as they were.
With the pure beams of the moon silvering the snowy canvass, and
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plating the deck with light; with the blue waves dancing and flashing about
her prow, and sparkling in her wake as if her way was upon a sea of diamonds;
with the stars brightly burning afar off in heaven, and the low organ
tones of the wind sweeping over the sea, making a solemn-sounding
harp of her cordage, the brigantine dashed proudly and gloriously on in her
course, as lovely and beautiful to the sight as before this dark deed of blood
was enacted within her!
CHAPTER X.
The Commodore and his Pupil. The Newspapers. News of deep
interest. The Corvette under orders.
One morning, about seven weeks after the events detailed in the last
chapter, old Commodore Ellingwood was seated in his leather arm chair,
before a comfortable fire in his parlor. One foot was bandaged and supported
upon a soft cushion of down, the work of the gentle needle-craft of
Grace. As usual the commodore was smoking his Turkish hookah, and
teaching little Hindoo Jack his catechism. The lad was squatted at his feet
upon the rug, holding the bowl of the pipe, with his large brilliant round
eyes fixed with awe upon his master, and vainly endeavoring to pronounce
the king's English.
`As Ben says, Jack, we'll have to clap a stopper on your talking hamper,
and bring you up with a round turn! Who was the old man?'
`Me no massa commodory, me no speak him!' answered the little fellow
with sparkling eager eyes.
`Now heave! me—'
`Mee—'
`Thu!'
`Foo—'
`Thu.'
`Phoo—'
`I dare say the creature means thu by foo, Ben,' said the commodore habitually
addressing himself to his familiar, though Ben was gone to the Post
Office. `Say su!'
`Su—'
`That's right!' exclaimed the commodore, who, it will be seen, had his
own peculiar way also of spelling. `Now lah!'
`Alah!'
`Not Allah! That's Turkish. Lah!'
`You'll never be a Christian, Jack. Now after me all at once. Ready!'
`Yis, Massa.'
`Methusulah!'
`Phoosylelalah!'
`That's about as much like it as a leather handspike is like the fore-yard.
Who made you?'
`De debbil!'
`No, you scoundrel! I thought I'd driven that answer into your shining
black head so that it wouldn't give. You'll go to the devil yet with all my
teaching. You are just like a crab rowing up stream; two strokes forward
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[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
and three backwards! You are overrunning your hawser every twenty-four
hours. If I get you fairly underweigh, I might as well try to beat a mudhooker
to windward as to get you into an offing. Ah, there's Ben with the
papers. Remember your lesson of this morning for tomorrow, Jack, or I'll
boxhaul your ears for you, sirrah.'
`Yis massy, Poo-soo-sy-la-lah!'
`Pussy be —, you young heathen! Ben there is no use trying to convert
this heathen. It's like wearing ship on a pivot.'
`'Taint in him, commodore. It stands to reason such a darkey as he
shouldn't be convarted. His jaw-tackle's wrong set in the first place, and
he'd have to be stripped and new-hampered afore catechism'd do him any
good. Here's two newspapers, but no letter!'
`None for me?' asked Grace, entering the room, lovely in person as when
last seen, though pale and wearing an expression of settled sadness.
`No, Miss Grace, none this voyage o' the mail stage.'
`Nor for Mrs. Winter?' she asked in a tone of disappointment.
`Not none, Miss Grace.
At this moment, Mrs. Winter entered the room with an earnest look.—
She was now an inmate of the mansion at Grove Lawn, and had become a
great favorite with the commodore. The three had talked all over again
and again, the affairs of the absent hero of this tale, and Mrs. Winter had
spoken so eloquently of her son, that the commodore's prejudices were
thrown overboard, and he felt and took a deep interest in him. Ben, who
was an acute observer of things, had made up his own mind that the commodore
and widow would get `spliced and sail under the same colors.' But
Grace saw nothing in her father's conduct to induce her to harbor any notion
of the kind. His manner was respectful and friendly; and as Mrs.
Winter was accomplished and agreeable, he found her society quite a favor
and a great relief; for Ben's yarns would give out; and as the commodore
had listened to every one of them at least fifty times each one, they failed
to awaken his attention or direct his mind from the twinges of gout.
They were all expecting letters now from Frank. It had been more than
three months since he had been written to by Grace and Mrs. Winter, save
that the letter, after learning from her agent that he had withheld the amount
of the draft for two thousand dollars, had again written him enclosing it to
him. The letter, of course, reached Marseilles after Frank's departure.
`Well, Grace, open and read the news,' said her father. `Letters will
come by and by Mrs. Winter! Let us see what vessels have arrived since
Saturday.'
Grace taking the paper, after Ben had aired it before the grate, glanced at
the shipping intelligence. `Nothing from Marseilles, sir. But here is a
strange thing. Returned to port last evening the barque Selma, after being
three days out, bound for Havre, having been chased and boarded by a pirate,
and robbed of ten kegs of dollars. For particulars of this outrage see
first page!'
`The dogs!' cried the commodore. `Where are our cruisers that these
hawks dare to venture upon the coast. Three days out, then it must have
been not thirty six hours sail from port, giving her time to get back again!
This is bold enough!'
`I'd like to be in a sloop with yer honor, and have this chap a pistol shot
under our lee,' said Ben.
`Read the particulars Gracy! This is an insult to the whole navy, stationed
here.
`Here they are, sir!'
`Read!'
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`PIRACY!—ROBBERY OF THE BARQUE SELMA OF THIS PLACE,
OFF EASTPORT, THREE DAYS AGO!
It is with no little surprise that we have to record a singularly bold and successful
piracy in our waters. The barque Selma, Captain Bunker, sailed hence
four days since for Havana, with eleven passengers. Yesterday she put back
into port, having met with a pirate, which took from her a large amount of specie.
Captain Bunker was severely wounded with a cutlass, by the pirate, for
defending property entrusted to him. We give below his letter to his merchants,
(politely handed to us for publication,) communicating the particulars
of this high-handed piracy, trusting that an armed vessel at once be despatched
to put a stop to further depredations of this character upon the high seas by
this vessel.
“Gentlemen,—It is my painful duty to communicate to you the particulars
of a piracy committed upon my vessel, in consequence of which I have thought
it best to put back to port. I sailed from Boston on the afternoon of the 11th
instant with a fair wind from the north-west, which by night placed the land
beneath the horizon. The wind chopped round in the second watch to the
south-east and was attended with squalls. At day-break we had clear and light
winds from the south, under which we laid our course, and run about four or
five knots for eight hours, when the wind veered to the east, and soon after
died away leaving us becalmed. We were in longitude 66 deg. 10 min., latitude
43 deg. 07 There were four sail in sight also becalmed; two schooners
in the northern board, six miles distant, a ship, about four miles astern, and a
brig about a league and a half ahead. The brig had been standing towards us
from the east, on the opposite tack before the wind lulled, and we had been remarking
how close she laid to the wind and the squareness of her yards; and
it was my opinion, as also my first officer's that she was a man-of-war brig. But
as we could not see her except bows-to, we could not judge. About eight bells
(4 o'clock, P. M.) the wind came out of the north and west, and we began to
move. The brig also got the breeze and laid her course. As the wind strengthened,
we were soon running three and a half knots, and rapidly nearing the
stranger. As she approached I saw that she was low in the water, very broad
in the beam like a slaver, and with very lofty rakish masts. I at once set her
down for a foreign vessel and showed my colors to get hers. She took no notice
of them, and we continued to shorten our distance until we were within a
quarter of a mile of her, when I was able, with my glass, to see enough of her
to make me shy of her company, if I had been a few degrees farther south;
but in this latitude I did not think of a pirate! I had all light sail set and was
running with the wind which had hauled to the north, nearly abeam on the
starboard tack, the stranger having it in the same way on the larboard tack.—
He was to lceward, and closely hugging the wind in a manner that led me to
think that he desired to speak with me. I bore away a point, when he passed
us within a cable's length and hailed. I sprang into the rigging with my trumpet
to answer, when I saw that she had at least forty men upon her deck; that
she carried a 32 pounder amidships, and had three ports to a side. The person
who hailed was armed with a cutlass and pistols in his belt, and I saw at once
that she was a pirate. Without waiting for my reply he ordered me to heave-to
and to enforce his command, opened his bow port and fired a shot over our
heads. I had no alternative but to obey, and gave orders to lay the main top-sail
to the mast. A boat was let down and eight men, armed to the teeth, pullled
her alongside. A young man, evidently either an Englishman or an American,
though he wore a mustache, clambered up the side, and leaping upon deck
cutlass in hand, approached me and asked if I commanded the vessel. I answered
in the affirmative. He then demanded to see my papers. I conducted
him into the cabin and placed them in his possession. He looked over the manifest,
and seeing by it that specie was on board, he commanded me to tell him
where it was placed. This I refused todo. He placed his hand upon the ring
of the patch of the run, where it was stowed, when I seized a sabre, sprung forward,
threw him off and stood uponit. He attacked me, and for a few moments
we had a combat, in which I wounded him slightly, and was myself
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severely wonnded in the left shoulder. He then said I had better submit to his
proceedings, or he would blow the barque out of the water! There was no alternative.
He ordered his men to come on board, and they conveyed the ten
kegs of specie to their brigantine, which, in the meanwhile, had been laid
alongside. He demanded the gold watches of the passengers, and even took a
necklace of diamonds from a lady a trunk. Seeing the ship which was astern
now approaching, he ordered his men on board, very politely bade us good evening,
and putting up his helm, squared away his yards and run southward, dead
before the wind. Not being able to fulfil my commissions in Havre, after the
loss of the specie, I thought it best to put back to port, from which I was only
a day and a half's sail.
Very respectfully yours,
E BUNKER.
P. S. The vessel had no name upon her stern, was painted black with black
spars, square-rigged with top-gallant stay-sails, was unusually taunt and rakish,
and a fast sailer. Some of her men were Americans or English, though most
of them were Spaniards. They seemed to be under good discipline, committing
no personal outrages upon my passengers or people.”
`Well, Ben what do you think of that, eh?' asked the commodore, when
Grace had ended, casting his eye corner-ways towards the old tar.
`It's what I call blasted cool, saving the ladies' presence.'
`It's time our cruisers were out Ben.'
`There'll be one out afore long. I only wish you had command, commodore.
I'd like to see you make a fringe of the fellows for the main-yard.'
`Here is more, sir,' said Grace. Another paragraph headed “Postscript.”'
`Let us hear it, Grace.
“Since the above was put in type, we learn that orders have just been received
from the commodore at Charlestown, by Captain Howel, of the corvette
Concord, now lying in the stream ready for sea, to put to sea forthwith, and
cruise for twenty days in search of this piratical brigantine!'
`That's it, Ben. Now we shall hear of her, rest assured.'
`But how can they find her?' asked Grace.
`If Howel is a sailor he can easily fall in with her. He only has to run
to the latitude where she was last seen, and run it down, keeping the list
three days wind in his mind, and the probable distance and course the pirate
would be likely to take. Ten to one she was back in the same spot
again in forty-eight hours after.'
`If it was after a thief on land,' said Ben, oracularly, then there might be
doubts; there's sich a sight o' roads crossing and crissing the land for a chap
to steer his course and be off on one, while you're cruisin' on another.—
But at sea, Miss Grace, it's all smooth board and open sailin'? There's no
skulking there,'
`You are right, Ben,' said the commodore. `Now Jack, let's see if you
can box-haul Methusulah.'
`Mooshy-mooly!'
`Yer honor!'
`Mooshy-mooly? Ben!'
`That little heathen rascal will be damned yet.'
`It stands to reason he should be, yer honor—he can't say catechism
enough no how to get into the main-cabin aloft, and what he does say is sich
outlandish gibberish, that the angel what stands sentry 'd send him for'ard
at onct, thinking he was talking heathen bible instead o' reglar Christian
catechism as you and I've tried to convert him with. It's no use.'
`No Ben, not a — bit!' answered the commodore with a hearty oath,
which can be expressed by a discreet dash.
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CHAPTER XI. The Conclusion.
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We shall now change the scene of our story, to the sea—four days after
the morning on which Grace read the account of the piracy upon the Selma.
It is two hours before sun-set. The wide blue sea below the arching
blue sky above. Nothing else is visible; not a cloud sailing in the azure
fields of air; nor a sail upon the blue watery expanse beneath. A spec all
at once, glistens upon the horizon. It grows larger and higher, and seems
to grow out of the sea like a snow-white plant, with leaves and branches
all white. It increases in size, and takes the form of the top-masts and
sails of a large ship. Her top-sails soar above the blue ocean line, and
shortly after, the dark body of her hull appears; and the distant object
stands forth to the eye, a stately ship of war, in all her proud proportions.
She advances; and as she comes nearer, the forms of men and the tracery
of her rigging becomes visible, and from her open ports, darkly protrude in
menacing silence, a range of iron guns. It is the corvette! She is standing
Eastward, with the wind free on her starboard quarter. Just visible,
aloft, standing on the highest foot-hold that can be attained, is a man—a
mere spec to the eye; whose gaze is bent now, South, now East, now West
now North! Suddenly his voice fills the air in a long cheerful cry:
`Sail ho!'
`Where away?' is shouted back by the officer upon deck.
`In the North-eastern board, Sir! two points forward of the beam!'
`What do you make her?'
`A brig; but I can scarcely see her, as her top-gallant yards dip. She
seems to be standing to the North-west!'
`Square away the yards!' cried the commander of the corvette.
The order was cheerfully repeated by the midshipman, and echoed by
the shrill whistle of the boatswain; and the heavy yards swung round together,
as if by the action of machinery, and the ship was in a few minutes
dashing on her course, in the direction of the strange sail, making full seven
knots by the hour.
The strange vessel kept on her course, and as the corvette was standing
strait for her with one point open so as to meet her, she was soon made out
to be a square-rigged brig, with an exceedingly rakish appearance; and this
discovery gave animation to the officers of the ship of war; for they felt sure
that she was the object of their search. They had however, overhauled so
many vessels in the four days they had been at sea, and been so often disappointed,
that they were not inclined to be too sanguine; although they
knew a vessel answering the description of the pirate, had chased a Liverpool
ship which they had spoken that morning, on the day previous.
Let us now precede the corvette, and draw nearer the stranger. As
we approach her, we recognise the very square yards, rakish indication of
the masts, and low crouching black hull of `La Guerreadora,' the brigantine
of captain Don Florio Torrel, and the self-same vessel which had boarded
the Selma. She is, however, as we look down upon her decks, no longer
full of men. There are but two persons visible on board. One of these,
is a man at the helm; the other a negro lad, who is standing by his side.
They are watching the far distant corvette with axious eyes; and as the vessel
lays as close to the wind, it is evident they are not trying to escape, but
rather edging up into the wind to meet her. Her sails are not so neatly
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set as formerly; the top-gallant sails being but two thirds hoisted, and the
top-sails closed reefed, though the wind is but a seven knot breeze, and not
a cloud visible. The yards not braced so sharp as they might be, nor are
they equally set. Although the brigantine presents an unusual appearance
and looks as if she never had a seaman who knew how to sail a vessel, upon
her decks; but this aspect of things can be easily accounted for, if the
man at the helm and the negro boy are the only persons on beard to manage
her. And this is the truth! The person at the helm, is a young man
scarce twenty, with a pale, firm countenance, yet over-cast with care and
anxiety. He is armed with a brace of pistols, and a cutlass, and a half a
dozen more pistols lay cocked upon the binnacle before him. The deck is
stained with blood, and the bodies of four men lie weltering in it under the
windlass. A fetter is passed around the young man's leg; and the chain
pended to it, was fastened up to his belt to keep it from trailing.
He had discovered the corvette before he himself was seen, and had with
the aid of the boy, braced his yards up as well as he could, to meet her, as
he was previously standing north-ward to reach the coast of Maine. He
was now closely watching the approch of the corvette, and when he saw
that she was evidently standing down towards him, his fine face lighted up
with hope and animation.
`We shall soon have done our task, Cubo,' he said to the negro in Spanish;
that ship is an armed vessel, and is approaching us. We shall soon
be relieved, thank God!'
As he spoke, there were sounds of fierce contention below; oaths and
execrations came from the bowels of the vessel, and tremendous blows
were struck against the hatchways, which were fastened down, and a gun
wheeled upon each. Suddenly the sky-light was burst off, and a man thrust
forth his head and one hand. The negro instantly severed the hand with a
blow of his cutlass. A second head was thrust through as the other fell,
and a man forced himself with fierce execrations half through; he fell
back dead, with a pistol ball through his head, and the sky-light was forced
on, and Winter, for it was he, placed himself upon it. Another climbed
from the cabin windows over the taffrail and sprang upon the deck. Winter
met his advance, with a fatal bullet, and the man fell his length across
the deck!
Each minute the corvette came nearer, and each moment the uproar and
voices of rage below rose deeper and fiercer.
`There go the American colours! It is the Concord!' cried Frank. `Now
ten minutes more and I am safe. Ten minutes more and I shall have redeemed
my reputation to my country and the service!'
The corvette was now within half a mile, bearing down under all sail. A
flash from her bows, a cloud of smoke—a report! and a shot came roaring
along above Winter's head, and dashed into the sea a quarter of a mile to
leeward. He immediately put the brigantine into the wind, shivering. In
five minutes the corvette was hove too to windward of her, and an armed
boat put off, and Lieutenant —, whom Frank had fought with at Mahon,
sprang on board. He started with surprise at seeing only two persons
on board, and blood and dead men covering the deck. Frank approached
him with a smile, presenting his cutlass hilt foremost.
`I surrender to you Mr. —, this brigantine with the greatest satisfaction.
I have had charge of her the last twenty-four hours, and feel no desire
to continue my command!'
`Can it be possible? Is this Winter?
`It is!'
`A pirate!'
`No, but the capturer of pirates! In the hold—do you not hear the growling?—
are confined twenty-nine as blood thirsty scoundrels, with their captain,
as ever trod a buccaneer's deck. There were forty, but the rest are
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dead in trying to escape. I was their prisoner, as you see by my chains yet
upon me!'
`How happened all this?' exclaimed Lieutenant —, with surprise,
`You claim, captain, and hold in confinement so large a body of pirates!'
`I and this negro lad, Cubo! I was passenger from Marseilles in this vessel
with Barton Ellis. He plotted with the crew, to seize the vessel. I refused
to join him. He took possession of her and placed me in irons!'
`I knew Ellis was a bad fellow!'
`He put into Gibralter, and there shipped a piratical crew, leaving me in
irons, every day at sea to mock me and torture me with insults. After leaving
Gibralter, he hoisted the black flag and took every thing he fell in with
that he could capture. Not satisfied with his prizes off the straits he run
for the United States to lay in wait for the liners. Seven days ago he boarded
a barque and robbed her of her specie and then stood south. They
cruised till yesterday without falling in with anything, when they chased
and captured a brig from Malaga, loaded with wines. They brought an
immense quantity on board, and held a general carouse. About midnight
all was singularly still. The vessel was knocking about with a strange irregular
motion. The little negro, Cubo, who had belonged to the owner of
the brigantine, Captain Torrel, came to me and told me that the men and
captain were all drunk. A thought struck me. He got me a file and I released
myself from the bolt by which I was confined. I then went softly on
deck. Every soul was dead drunk. All but five men were below. These
five I found insensible and despatched them as they lay in their wine. I
then fastened down the hatches, wheeling with strength supernatural a gun
carriage over them. In the same way I secured the fore-castle and cabin,
in which was Ellis. I had previously supplied myself with their weapons.
I then took command of the brig, and as well as I could, got steerage way
on her again; for she had broached to and was all aback. I steered for the
coast of Maine. I have not left my post since midnight. They awoke sober
this morning, and began to struggle fearfully to break upon deck. I
cannot describe their terrible and hellish rage. They have been howling
and struggling almost incessantly, ever since, to break forth, and three they
have got through the cabin windows and sky-lights only to be shot. The
sight of the corvette, you may rest assured, gave me no little joy!'
The lieutenant listened with astonishment at this relation, corroborated as
it was by the presence of Winter and the negro boy alone on deck, and the
enraged howlings of the pirates confined below; who, early aware that a
vessel of war was approaching had made supernatural efforts to escape and
regain possession of their vessel.
We shall now end our story in a few words. In less than an hour every
pirate had been conveyed in chains on board the corvette, Ellis distinguished
from the rest by double irons. He was silent, morose, and seemingly
reckless of the fate that awaited him.
Frank was rewarded for his daring exploit by restoration to the navy, and
a lieutenancy. The following year he led Grace to the altar, the old commodore
giving away his daughter, Ben standing by to hold the commodore's
cocked hat during the ceremony. Frank is now one of the most gallant officers
in the service. He is thoroughly ashamed of his `independence' as a
middy, and is convinced that discipline can only preserve the service from
corruption. The commodore is still teaching Jack his catechism, and as
Ben has learnt him to write after hieroglyphics of his own, there is hope he
may yet turn out with great credit to his two preceptors.
THE END.
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