The pilot a tale of the sea |
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| 14. | CHAPTER XIV. |
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 | CHAPTER XIV. The pilot |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
Hath heard the hunters' cries,
And rushes forth to meet his foes,
So did the Douglass rise—”
percy.
Alice Dunscombe did not find the second of
the prisoners buried, like Griffith, in sleep, but
he was seated on one of the old chairs that were
in the apartment, with his back to the door, and
apparently looking through the small window, on
the dark and dreary scenery, over which the tempest
was yet sweeping in its fury. Her approach
was unheeded, until the light from her lamp glared
across his eyes, when he started from his musing
posture, and advanced to meet her. He
was the first to speak.
“I expected this visit,” he said, “when I found
that you recognised my voice, and I felt a deep
assurance in my breast, that Alice Dunscombe
would never betray me.”
His listener, though expecting this confirmation
of her conjectures, was unable to make an
immediate reply, but she sunk into the seat he
had abandoned, and waited a few moments, as if
to recover her powers.
“It was, then, no mysterious warning! no airy
she at length said. “Why have you thus braved
the indignation of the laws of your country? on
what errand of fell mischief has your ruthless
temper again urged you to embark?”
“This is strong and cruel language, coming
from you to me, Alice Dunscombe,” returned the
stranger, with cool asperity; “and the time has
been, when I should have been greeted, after a
shorter absence, with milder terms.”
“I deny it not; I cannot, if I would, conceal
my infirmity from myself or you; I hardly wish
it to continue unknown to the world. If I have
once esteemed you—if I have plighted to you my
troth, and, in my confiding folly, forgot my
higher duties, God has amply punished me for
the weakness, in your own evil deeds.”
“Nay, let not our meeting be embittered with
useless and provoking recriminations,” said the
other; “for we have much to say before you
communicate the errand of mercy on which you
have come hither. I know you too well, Alice,
not to see that you perceive the peril in which I
am placed, and am willing to venture something
for my safety. Your mother—does she yet
live?”
“She is gone in quest of my blessed father,”
said Alice, covering her pale face with her hands;
“they have left me alone, truly, for he who was
to have been all to me, was first false to his faith,
and has since become unworthy of my confidence.”
The stranger became singularly agitated, his
usually quiet eye glancing hastily from the
floor to the countenance of his companion, as he
paced the room with hurried steps; at length he
replied—
“There is much, perhaps, to be said in explanation,
that you do not know. I left the country,
because I found in it nothing but oppression and
injustice, and I could not invite you to become
the bride of a wanderer, without either name or
fortune. But I have now the opportunity of
proving my truth. You say you are alone; be so
no longer, and try how far you were mistaken in
believing that I should one day supply the place
to you of both father and mother.”
There is something soothing to a female ear in
the offer of even protracted justice, and Alice
spoke with less of acrimony in her tones, during
the remainder of their conference, if not with
less of severity in her language.
“You talk not like a man whose very life
hangs but on a thread that the next minute may
snap asunder. Whither would you lead me? is
it to the tower at London!”
“Think not I have weakly exposed my person
without a sufficient protection,” returned the
stranger, with cool indifference; “there are many
gallant men who only wait my signal, to crush
the paltry force of this officer like a worm beneath
my feet.”
“Then has the conjecture of Colonel Howard
been true! and the manner in which the enemy's
vessels have passed the shoals, is no longer a
mystery! you have been their pilot!”
“I have.”
“What! would ye pervert the knowledge
gained in the spring-time of your guileless youth
to the foul purpose of bringing desolation to the
doors of those you once knew and respected!
John! John! is the image of the maiden whom
in her morning of beauty and simplicity I believe
you did love, so faintly impressed, that
it cannot soften your hard heart to the misery
who compose her little world.”
“Not a hair of theirs shall be touched, not a
thatch shall blaze, nor shall a sleepless night befall
the vilest among them—and all for your
sake, Alice! England comes to this contest with
a seared conscience, and bloody hands, but all
shall be forgotten for the present, when both opportunity
and power offer, to make her feel our
vengeance, even in her vitals. I came not on
such an errand.”
“What, then, has led you blindly into snares,
where all your boasted aid would avail you nothing;
for, should I call aloud your name, even
here, in the dark and dreary passages of this
obscure edifice, the cry would echo through the
country, ere the morning, and a whole people
would be found in arms to punish your audacity.”
“My name has been sounded, and that in no
gentle strains,” returned the pilot, scornfully,
“when a whole people have quailed at it; the
craven, cowardly wretches, flying before the man
they had wronged. I have lived to bear the
banners of the new republic, proudly, in sight of
the three kingdoms, when practised skill and
equal arms have in vain struggled to pluck it
down. Ay! Alice, the echoes of my guns are
still roaring among your eastern hills, and
would render my name more appalling than inviting
to your sleeping yeomen.”
“Boast not of the momentary success that the
arm of God has yielded to your unhallowed efforts,”
said Alice; “for a day of severe and
heavy retribution must follow; nor flatter yourself
with the idle hope, that your name, terrible
as ye have rendered it to the virtuous, is sufficient,
of itself, to drive the thoughts of home,
Nay, I know not that even now, in listening to
you, I am not forgetting a solemn duty, which
would teach me to proclaim your presence, that
the land might know that her unnatural son is a
dangerous burthen in her bosom.”
The pilot turned quickly in his short walk;
and, after reading her countenance, with the expression
of one who felt his security, he said, in
gentler tones—
“Would that be Alice Dunscombe! would
that be like the mild, generous girl whom I
knew in my youth! But, I repeat, the threat
would fail to intimidate, even if you were capable
of executing it. I have said that it is only
to make the signal, to draw around me a force
sufficient to scatter these dogs of soldiers to the
four winds of heaven.”
“Have you calculated your power justly,
John?” said Alice, unconsciously betraying her
deep interest in his safety. “Have you reckoned
the probability of Mr. Dillon's arriving, accompanied
by an armed band of horsemen, with
the morning's sun? for it's no secret in the Abbey,
that he is gone in quest of such assistance.”
“Dillon!” exclaimed the pilot, starting;
“who is he! and on what suspicion does he seek
this addition to your guard?”
“Nay, John, look not at me, as if you would
know the secrets of my heart. It was not I who
prompted him to such a step; you cannot, for a
moment, think that I would betray you! But
too surely he has gone, and, as the night wears
rapidly away, you should be using the hour of
grace to effect your own security.”
“Fear not for me, Alice,” returned the pilot,
proudly, while a faint smile struggled around his
compressed lip; “and yet, I like not this movement,
is he a minion of King George?”
“He is, John, what you are not, a loyal subject
of his sovereign lord the King, and, though
a native of the revolted colonies, he has preserved
his virtue uncontaminated amid the corruptions
and temptations of the times.”
“An American! and disloyal to the liberties of
the human race! By Heaven, he had better not
cross me; for if my arm reach him, it shall hold
him forth as a spectacle of treason to the world.”
“And has not the world enough of such a spectacle
in yourself? Are ye not, even now, breathing
your native air, though lurking through the
mists of the island, with desperate intent against
its peace and happiness?”
A dark and fierce expression of angry resentment
flashed from the eyes of the pilot, and even
his iron frame seemed to shake with emotion, as
he answered—
“Call you his dastardly and selfish treason,
aiming, as it does, to aggrandize a few, at the
expense of millions, a parallel case to the generous
ardour that impels a man to fight in the defence
of sacred liberty? I might tell you that I
am armed in the common cause of my fellow subjects
and countrymen; that though an ocean divided
us in distance, yet are we a people of the
same blood, and children of the same parents,
and that the hand which oppresses one, inflicts
an injury on the other. But I disdain all such
narrow apologies. I was born on this orb, and I
claim to be a citizen of it. A man with a soul,
not to be limited by the arbitrary boundaries of
tyrants and hirelings, but one who has the right
as well as the inclination to grapple with oppression,
in whosoever's name it is exercised, or in
claim to abuse our race.”
“Ah! John, John, though this may sound
like reason to rebellious ears, to mine it seemeth
only as the ravings of insanity. It is in vain ye
build up your new and disorganizing systems of
rule, or rather misrule, which are opposed to all
that the world has ever yet done, or will ever see
done in peace and happiness. What avail your
subtleties and false reasonings against the heart!
It is the heart which tells us where our home is,
and how to love it.”
“You talk like a weak and prejudiced woman,
Alice,” said the pilot, more composedly; “and
one who would shackle nations with the ties that
bind the young and feeble of your own sex together.”
“And by what holier or better bond can they be
united!” said Alice. “Are not the relations of
domestic life of God's establishing, and have not
nations grown from families, as branches spread
from the stem, till the tree overshadows the land!
'Tis an ancient and sacred tie that binds man to
his nation, neither can it be severed without infamy.”
The pilot smiled disdainfully, and throwing
open the rough exterior of his dress, he drew
forth, in succession, several articles, with a glowing
pride lighting his countenance, as he offered
them singly to her notice,
“See, Alice!” he said, “call you this infamy!
This broad sheet of parchment is stamped with a
seal of no mean importance, and it bears the
royal name of the princely Louis also! And
view this cross! decorated as it is with jewels,
the gift of the same illustrious hand; it is not apt
to be given to the children of infamy, neither is
it wise or decorous to stigmatize a man who has
princes and nobles, by the opprobrious name of
the `Scotch pirate.”
“And have ye not earned the title, John, by
ruthless deeds and bitter animosity! I could kiss
the baubles ye show me, if they were a thousand
times less splendid, had they been laid upon your
breast by the hands of your lawful prince; but
now they appear to my eyes only as indelible
blots upon your attainted name. As to your associates,
I have heard of them! and it seemeth
that a queen might be better employed than
encouraging by her smiles the disloyal subjects
of other monarchs, though even her enemies.
God only knows when his pleasure may suffer
a spirit of disaffection to rise up among the people
of her own nation, and then the thought that
she has encouraged rebellion may prove both bitter
and unwelcome.”
“That the royal and lovely Antoinette has
deigned to repay my services with a small portion
of her gracious approbation, is not among
the least of my boasts,” returned the pilot, in
affected humility, while secret pride was manifested
even in his proud attitude. “But venture
not a syllable in her dispraise, for you know not
whom you censure. She is less distinguished by
her illustrious birth and elevated station, than by
her virtues and loveliness. She lives the first of
her sex in Europe—the daughter of an emperor,
the consort of the most powerful king, and the
smiling and beloved patroness of a nation who
worship at her feet. Her life is above all reproach,
as it is above all earthly punishment,
were she so lost as to merit it; and it has been
the will of Providence to place her far beyond
the reach of all human misfortunes.”
“Has it placed her above human errors, John!
of sin, and unless she can say more than
has ever fallen to the lot of humanity to say truly,
she may yet be made to feel the chastening arm
of One, to whose eyes all her pageantry and
power are as vacant as the air she breathes—so insignificant
must it seem when compared to his own
just rule! But if you vaunt that you have been
permitted to kiss the hem of the robes of the
French queen, and have been the companion of
high-born and flaunting ladies, clad in their richest
array, can ye yet say to yourself, that amid them
all ye have found one whose tongue has been
bold to tell you the truth, or whose heart has
sincerely joined in her false professions!”
“Certainly none have met me with the reproaches
that I have this night received from
Alice Dunscombe, after a separation of six long
years,” returned the pilot, reproachfully.
“If I have spoken to you the words of holy
truth, John, let them not be the less welcome,
because they are strangers to your ears. Oh!
think that she who has thus dared to use the language
of reproach to one whose name is terrible
to all who live on the border of this island, is led
to the rash act by no other motive than interest in
your eternal welfare.”
“Alice! Alice, you madden me with these
foolish speeches! Am I a monster to frighten unprotected
women and helpless children? What
mean these epithets, as coupled with my name?
Have you too lent a credulous ear to the vile calumnies
with which the policy of your rulers have
ever attempted to destroy the fair fame of those
who oppose them, and those chiefly who oppose
them with success. My name may be terrible
to the officers of the royal fleet, but where and
to the helpless and unoffending?”
Alice Dunscombe cast a furtive and timid
glance at the pilot, which spoke even stronger
than her words, as she replied—
“I know not that all which is said of you and
your deeds is true. I have often prayed, in bitterness
and sorrow, that a tenth part of that
which is laid to your charge may not be heaped
on your devoted head at the great and final account.
But, John, I have known you long and
well, and Heaven forbid, that, on this solemn occasion,
which may be the last of our earthly interviews,
I should be found wanting in christian
duty, through a woman's weakness. I have often
thought, when I have heard the gall of bitter reproach
and envenomed language hurled against
your name, that they who spoke so rashly, little
understood the man they vituperated. But, though
ye are at times, and I may say almost always, as
mild and even as the smoothest sea over which ye
have ever sailed, yet God has mingled in your
nature a fearful mixture of fierce passions, which,
roused, are more like the southern waters when
troubled with the tornado. It is difficult for
me to say, how far this evil spirit may lead a man,
who has been goaded by fancied wrongs, to forget
his country and home, and who is suddenly
clothed with power to show his resentments.”
The pilot listened with rooted attention, and
his piercing eye seemed to reach to the seat of
those thoughts which she but half expressed; still,
he retained the entire command of himself, and
answered more in sorrow than in anger—
“If any thing could convert me to your own
peaceful and unresisting opinions, Alice, it would
be the reflections that offer themselves at this conviction,
that even you have been led, by the base
honour and conduct. What is fame, when a man
can be thus traduced to his nearest friends! But
no more of these childish reflections! They are
unworthy of myself, my office, and the sacred
cause in which I have enlisted!”
“Nay, John, shake them not off,” said Alice,
with deep interest, unconsciously laying her hand
on his arm; “they are as the dew to the parched
herbage, and may freshen the feelings of your
youth, and soften the heart that has grown hard,
if hard it be, more by unnatural indulgence, than
its own base inclinations.”
“Alice Dunscombe,” said the pilot, approaching
her with solemn earnestness, “I have learnt
much this night, though I came not in quest of
such knowledge. You have taught me how powerful
is the breath of the slanderer, and how frail
is the tenure by which we hold our good names.
Full twenty times have I met the hirelings of your
prince in open battle, fighting ever manfully under
that flag which was first raised to the breeze
by my own hands, and which, I thank my God,
I have never yet seen lowered an inch; but with
no one act of cowardice or private wrong, in
all that service, can I reproach myself; and yet,
how am I rewarded! The tongue of the vile
calumniator is keener than the sword of the warrior,
and leaves a more indelible scar!”
“Never have ye uttered a truer sentiment,
John, and God send that ye may encourage
such thoughts to your own eternal advantage,”
said Alice, with engaging interest. “You say
that you have risked your precious life in twenty
combats, and observe how little of Heaven's favour
is bestowed on the abettors of rebellion! They
tell me that the world has never witnessed a more
desperate and bloody struggle than this last, for
furthermost ends of the isle.”
“'Twill be known wherever naval combats are
spoken of,” interrupted the pilot, the melancholy
which had begun to lower in his countenance,
giving place to a look of proud exultation.
“And yet, its fancied glory cannot shield your
name from wrong, nor are the rewards of the
victor equal, in a temporal sense, to those which
the vanquished has received. Know you that our
gracious monarch, deeming your adversary's
cause so sacred, has extended to him his royal
favour?”
“Ay! he has dubbed him knight!” exclaimed
the pilot, with a scornful and bitter laugh; “let
him be again furnished with a ship, and me with
another opportunity, and I promise him an earldom,
if being again vanquished can constitute a
claim!”
“Speak not so rashly, nor vaunt yourself
of possessing a protecting power, that may desert
you, John, when you most need it, and least expect
the change,” returned his companion; “the
battle is not always to the strong, neither is the
race to the swift.”
“Forget you, my good Alice, that your words
will admit of a double meaning? Has the battle
been to the strong! Though you say not well in
denying the race to the swift. Yes, yes, often and
again have the dastards escaped me by their prudent
speed! Alice Dunscombe, you know not a
thousandth part of the torture that I have been
made to feel, by high born miscreants, who envy
the merit they cannot equal, and detract from the
glory of deeds that they dare not attempt to emulate.
How have I been cast upon the ocean like
some unworthy vessel that is commissioned to do
a desperate deed, and then to bury itself in the
have triumphed, as they beheld my canvass open,
thinking that it was spread to hasten me to a
gibbet, or to a tomb in the bosom of the ocean;
but I have disappointed them!”
The eyes of the pilot no longer gazed with their
piercing and settled meaning, but they flashed
with a fierce and wild pleasure, as he continued,
in a louder voice—
“Yes, bitterly have I disappointed them! Oh!
the triumph over my fallen enemies has been
tame, to this heartfelt exultation which places me
immeasurably above those false and craven hypocrites!
I begged, I implored, the Frenchmen, for
the meanest of their craft, which possessed but the
common qualities of a ship of war; I urged the
policy and necessity of giving me such a force, for
even then I promised to be found in harm's way;
but, envy and jealousy robbed me of my just
dues, and of more than half my glory. They call
me pirate! If I have a claim to the name, it was
furnished more by the paltry outfit of my friends,
than by any acts towards my enemies!”
“And do not these recollections prompt you to
return to your allegiance to your prince and
native land, John?” said Alice, in a subdued
voice.
“Away with the silly thought,” interrupted the
pilot, recalled to himself as if by a sudden conviction
of the weakness he had betrayed; “it is
ever thus where men are made conspicuous by
their works—but to your visit—I have the power
to rescue myself and companions from this paltry
confinement, and yet I would not have it done
with violence, for your sake.—Bring you the
means of doing it in quiet?”
“When the morning arrives, you will be all
conducted to the apartment where we first met.
under the plea of compassion and justice, and
with the professed object of inquiring into your
situations. Her request will not be refused, and
while your guard is stationed at the door, you will
be shown, by another entrance through the private
apartments of the wing, to a window, whence
you can easily leap to the ground, where a thicket
is at hand; afterwards we shall trust your safety
to your own discretion?”
“And if this Dillon, of whom you have spoken,
should suspect the truth, how will you answer to
the law for aiding our escape?”
“I believe he little dreams who is among the
prisoners,” said Alice, musing, “though he may
have detected the character of one of your companions.
But it is private feeling, rather than
public spirit, that urges him on.”
“I have suspected something of this,” returned
the pilot, with a smile, that crossed those features
where ungovernable passions had so lately been
exhibited, with an effect, that might be likened
to the last glimmering of an expiring conflagration,
serving to render the surrounding ruin more
obvious. “This young Griffith has led me from
my direct path, with his idle imprudence, and it
is right that his mistress should incur some risk.
But with you, Alice, the case is different; here
you are only a guest, and it is unnecessary that
you should be known in the unfortunate affair.
Should my name get abroad, this recreant American,
this Col. Howard, will find all the favour
he has purchased by his advocating the cause of
tyranny, necessary to protect him from the displeasure
of the ministry.”
“I fear to trust so delicate a measure to the
young discretion of my amiable friend,” said
Alice, shaking her head.
“Remember, that she has her attachment to
plead in her excuse; but dare you say to the
world that you still remember, with gentle feelings,
the man whom you stigmatize with such
opprobrious epithets!”
A slight colour gleamed over the pallid brow
of Alice Dunscombe, as she uttered in a voice
that was barely audible—
“There is no longer a reason why the world
should know of such a weakness, though it did
exist.” And, as the faint glow passed away,
leaving her face pale, nearly as the hue of death,
her eyes kindled with unusual fire, and she added,
“They can but take my life, John, and that I
am ready to lay down in your service!”
“Alice!” exclaimed the softened pilot, “my
kind, my gentle Alice!”—
The knock of the sentinel at the door, was
heard at this critical moment. Without waiting
for a reply to his summons, the man entered the
apartment, and, in hurried language, declared the
urgent necessity that existed for the lady to retire.
A few brief remonstrances were uttered by both
Alice and the pilot, who wished to comprehend
more clearly each other's intentions relative to
the intended escape; but the fear of personal
punishment rendered the soldier obdurate, and a
dread of exposure at length induced the lady to
comply. She arose, and was leaving the apartment
with lingering steps, when the pilot, touching
her hand, whispered to her impressively—
“Alice, we meet again before I leave this island
for ever.”
“We meet in the morning, John,” she returned,
in the same tone of voice, “in the apartments
of Miss Howard.”
He dropped her hand, and she glided from the
room, when the impatient sentinel closed the door,
pilot remained in a listening attitude, until the
light footsteps of the retiring pair were no longer
audible, when he paced his confined apartment
with perturbed steps, occasionally pausing to look
out at the driving clouds, and the groaning oaks
that were trembling and rocking their broad arms
in the fitful gusts of the gale. In a few minutes
the tempest in his own passions had gradually
subsided to the desperate and still calmness that
made him the man he was; when he again seated
himself where Alice had found him, and began
to muse on the events of the times, from which,
the transition to projecting schemes of daring enterprise
and mighty consequences, was but the
usual employment of his active and restless mind.
| CHAPTER XIV. The pilot | |