University of Virginia Library

13. XIII.
IN THE TOMBS.

Old play.

There is not a pleasanter place in the world for
a summer residence than Blackwell's Island! The
chief edifices are substantial, and the grounds are
laid out with exceeding care. The water-scape is
delightfully invigorating, and the sojourners at this
watering-place are not of that transient class which
one finds at Nahant, Newport, and other pet resorts.
Indeed, it is usual to spend from six to eight
months on the “Island,” and one has the advantage
of contracting friendships which are not severed
at the first approach of the “cold term”—for the

particulars of which “cold term,” see that funny
old savant of Brooklyn Heights, who has a facetious
way of telling us that it has been raining, after the
shower is over.—Bless him!

Such institutions as “Blackwell's Island” are god-sends
to the literati. A poor devil of an author,
who has a refined taste for suburban air, but whose
finances preclude his dreaming of Nahant, has only
to mix himself up in a street fight, or some other
interesting city episode, to be entitled to a country-seat
at the expense of his grateful admirers! Owing
to a little oversight on his part, the author of this
veracious history took a passage for “Blackwell's
Island” a trifle earlier in the season than he had
anticipated; and it is at that delightful region these
pages are indited.

But the Tombs—heaven save us from that!

There are many pleasanter places in New-York
than the Tombs; for that clumsy piece of Egyptian
architecture—its dingy marble walls, its nail-studded
doors and sickening atmosphere—is uncommonly
disagreeable as a dwelling. Many startling tragedies
have been enacted there—scenes of eternal farewells
and lawful murders. I could not count on my
fingers the number of men who have entered its
iron gates full of life, and come out cold, still and
dreadful!

It was here that Mortimer was brought.

Within, all was sombre and repulsive. Without,
there was hum of voices, and the frosty rails which
ran in front of the prison creaked dismally as the
heavy freight cars passed over them; but these
sounds of life were not heard inside.

The cell of Mortimer and its occupants, the morning
after his arrest, presented a scene of gloomy
picturesqueness.

Through a grated window, some six feet from
the stone floor, a strip of sunshine came and went,
falling on Mortimer, who leaned thoughtfully against
the damp wall. The room, if we may call it one,
was devoid of furniture, with the exception of a
low iron bedstead, whose straw-stuffed mattress and
ragged coverlid suggested anything but sleep. Daisy
Snarle was standing with downcast eyes near the
door which a few minutes before had closed on its
creaking hinges, and outside of which the jailor
stood listening.

The long, dark lashes were resting on her cheek;
the pearls of the necklace, which gleamed here
and there in the queenly braid, looked whiter by
contrast with Daisy's chestnut hair. In one hand
she had gathered the folds of her shawl, the other
hung negligently at her side. From beneath the
skirt of her simple dress, peeped one of the loveliest

feet ever seen, and her whole attitude was unconsciously
exquisite. She had just ceased speaking,
and the faintest possible tinge of crimson was on
her cheeks.

“Daisy, you are one of God's good angels, or you
would never have come to me in this repulsive
place.”

Daisy's eyes were still bent on the floor.

“Speak to me again, Daisy,” said Mortimer, taking
her hand. “Your voice gives me heart, and your
words make me forget everything but you.”

Daisy lifted her dreamy hands, and said, softly:—
“They could not find it.”

“Could not find what, Daisy?”

“The necklace,” said Daisy, smiling.

“No,” she continued, in a low, musical voice,
“they searched in all the rooms, in all the trunks—
turned over your papers and mother's work-basket
—but they could not find it.”

And Daisy smiled again.

“Where was it, Daisy?”

“Here!”

And Daisy, smiling all the while, lifted Mortimer's
hand in hers, and placed it on the braid of
hair.

Mortimer started.

“O, Daisy! Daisy! why did you do that?”

The little foot tapped gently on the stone floor.

“Because,” said Daisy, dropping her eyes, “because,
when I read your note yesterday, I doubted
you for a moment: but when I looked at the portrait
in your room, I believed you; and I hid the
necklace in my hair, and came to ask your pardon.”

“Let any misfortune come to me, darling!”
said Mortimer, touched with this ingenious act,
“let come what will, I am strong! As sure as
little Bell looks down from Heaven, you do not
wear a stolen necklace. How it came into my
hands I cannot tell, without wronging the dead.
But, Daisy, it was imprudent for you to run this
risk.”

“Oh, no; they hunted for something hidden, and
could not see what was before their eyes,” replied
Daisy, giving a quick, low laugh, and then she grew
thoughtful again.

“But if they had seen it, Daisy?”

“Well.”

“You would have been implicated in this unhappy
affair to your certain ruin, without benefiting
me. You must leave the necklace here.”

“But I wont!”

This time the pretty little foot was set firmly on
the flagging.

The jailor, who had been an attentive listener to
the foregoing conversation, thrust his hands into
the capacious pockets of his overcoat with the
bearing of a man who is completely satisfied.

“I knowed it,” he said, emphatically; “the boy
is misfortunate somehow, and the young girl's a
trump—she is, Lord help 'em! But time's up, and
I must stop their talk.”

With this the man tapped on the door. Mortimer
held Daisy in his arms for a moment, and then sat
down on the bed.

Daisy was gone, and it seemed as if the sunlight
had gone with her, the cell grew so gloomy to the
prisoner.

“Young man,” said the jailor, with a solemn look,
“the young lady is very unprudent to go circumventing
round with that necklace twisted up on the
top ov her skull—she is.”

Mortimer groaned.

“You heard all, then, and you will betray us!”

“Part ov what you say is true,” returned
the man, bluntly, “and part isn't. I heard yer
talk, but my name isn't Joe Wilkes ef I blow on
yer!”

Mortimer looked at the ruddy, honest face of Joe
Wilkes, and gave him his hand.

“I believe you, my good man.”

That individual appeared to be turning something
over in his mind which refused to be turned
over.

“Them keys, young man,” he said at length,
drawing forth from his pocket a bunch weighing
some four pounds, “opens the door at the end ov
the passage, and this one opens the street gate;
now jist take that bit ov wood and bang me on one
side ov my hed—not savagely, you know, but jist
enough to flatten me, and make me look stunned-like—”

At this novel proposition Mortimer broke into a
loud laugh, but Mr. Wilkes was in earnest, and insisted
on being “flattened.”

“I couldn't think of it, Mr. Wilkes!” cried Mortimer,
weak with laughter; “I couldn't strike you
systematically; I should be certain to demolish your
head.”

And Mr. Wilkes retired, perforce, with the air of
an injured man.

Mortimer sat on the edge of the bed reflecting on
the strange chain of circumstances which had placed
him in his present position, and boldly facing the
fact of how little chance he had of escaping Mr.
Flint's malice. The excitement attending his arrest
had passed away, and the reality of his utter helplessness
came full upon him. For himself he dreaded

little, for no punishment for a supposed crime, however
disgraceful, could make him guilty; but a
prolonged imprisonment would leave Daisy and Mrs.
Snarle without means of support. This caused him
more anxiety than the thought of any suffering attendant
on his conviction.

More than this troubled him. It was Daisy's
devotion. He had, indeed, wished her to believe
him innocent, but his generous mind revolted at
holding her to promises made in happier moments.
He could not make Daisy his wife while a
blemish remained on his honor; and the circumstances
relative to the forged check, with which
the reader is conversant, he could not think of
revealing, for Snarle's dying words haunted him
strangely.

While Mortimer was thus meditating, two hands
grasped the iron bars of the window, which was
directly opposite the bed, and a moment afterwards
a man's head threw a shadow into the cell.

Mortimer, absorbed in thought, had failed to notice
it.

The first expression of the face was that of mere
curiosity this was followed by a startled look, and
then an intense emotion distorted the features. The
face grew deathly pale, and the eyeballs glowed

into the cell, more resembling those of a wild-cat
than a human being's.

A deep groan came from the window, and the
head disappeared instantaneously.

Mortimer looked up and glanced around the narrow
room suspiciously, and then smiled to think
how his fancy had cheated him.

The face was Edward Walters.