University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.

On the morning of the first of June, 1689, while
the guns were booming over the waters of Boston
harbor, and welcoming the dawn of the jubilee, an
open boat was slowly working its way up to the metropolis,
containing four men, who were nearly worn
to skeletons by fatigue and starvation. They were
the survivors of the small number of sailors, who,
with the unfortunate Captain Nix, were abandoned
by Fitzvassal and the other mutineers of the Dolphin
so many months before, to the mercy of the
winds and the waves. Since that time, they had

gone through incredible hardships by land and by
sea, having been taken and tormented by savages
while ashore in an unknown region, from which
they providentially escaped on the appearance of the
summer. Their coming into Boston harbor appeared
to be merely accidental, but the event showed that it
happened in accordance with that wondrous fitness
of things, that so often appeals to the rationality of
man to lead him from a belief in accident and blind
chance.

Three of those miserable beings perished before
the winter set in, and the survivors were sustained
by the exercise of great fortitude and perseverance.

On their coming up to the metropolis, having
neither compass or chart, which had been taken
from them by the Indians for baubles, they landed
on Green Island, then a beautiful spot about midway
between the town and the light-house. Here they
found fresh water, and clams, by which they were
revived, so that they could enjoy the marvellous
beauty of the place, which was covered with fruit
trees all in blossom; where the red-breast was hopping
from spray to spray, and singing blithsomely
in the mild air of June.

That morning was to those weary men a sabbath
of sweet rest, and they poured out heart-felt thanks
givings for all the dangers they had escaped; yet they
knew not where they were. They wandered a long
while along the borders of the small island, which

they could compass in an hour's loitering walk,
charmed with the deliciousness of all around them;
for the waters were clear and unruffled, and the
shadows of the fruit-trees were painted in the broad
mirror of the Atlantic. Other islands were around
them, green and beautiful to behold, and several miles
toward the north-west, with intervening fortresses,
appeared a large city, as if built on a single hill, sloping
from an elevation of a hundred feet to the
champaign on both sides, and sending up its many
glittering spires to heaven. On the left were hills
blue as the vault above them, and on all sides landscape
features which are perhaps unequalled by any
similar spot on earth.

While they were sauntering in this way, hoping
for some boat to pass which might convey them to
the habitation of man, a small canoe, containing a
beautiful Indian woman, glided near to the Island,
and seemed to be drifting toward the city. They
hailed her again and again, but no answer was returned.
She was weeping and sobbing piteously,
and seemed to be too much absorbed in her own
grief to lend an ear to their address.

Towards noon, a fishing-boat passed near them,
and on being hailed, it landed for their relief. Then,
for the first time, they learned that they were in the
harbor of Boston, the birth-place, as Captain  Nix
well knew, of his faithless mate . But it was the last
place he would have imagined Fitzvassal to be in, after

the cruelties he had inflicted on himself and fellow-sufferers;
but when, after a long conversation
with the fisherman, he learned that a vessel described
as his own, called the Dolphin, was in the harbor,
and that its commander, whose description answered
so perfectly to the peculiarities of Fitzvassal,
was known as Captain Nix, he could not doubt for an
instant of their identity.

The fisherman, who became interested in the unfortunate
mariners, promptly received them on board
his boat, and proceeded with them to Boston. On
the way thither, Captain Nix recognized his vessel,
and in an hour after, he made his affidavit before a Justice,
on which a warrant was issued, and the buccaneer
arrested as we have said. On his appearance,
the evidence against him was overwhelming, and
his identity with Captain  Nix's mate  was placed
beyond question, by the figure of an anchor
which had been pricked into his arm with India ink,
the letters E. F. beneath it. On the evidence, he
was fully committed for trial.

On the day after, Edward Fitzvassal was arraigned
before the Court to listen to the indictment which was
found against him for piracy on the high seas. An
immense crowd had collected, and filled the court-room.
When it was finished the clerk said:

“Edward Fitzvassal! you have listened to the indictment
which the Grand Jurors, &c. have found

against you, charging you with piracy on the high
seas. Are you guilty or not guilty?”

Fitzvassal stood in the prisoners dock, and the eyes
of all were fixed upon him. He had recovered his
wonted firmness, and now betrayed no outward sign of
the deep emotion he was feeling. He looked around
composedly on the multitude, and then folding his
arms on his bosom, turned to the clerk, and replied,
in a clear, but melancholy tone:

“Guilty!”

A murmur of regret and disappointment ran
through the crowd of spectators, whose sympathies
had been deeply awaked in behalf of one to whom
they acknowledged their obligations. A dead silence
followed, when the Judge, after a brief address, in
which he expressed the sorrow and reluctance he
felt in being the minister of justice to him almost at
the very moment when the honors of redeemed Massachusetts
were green on his brows, said:—

“Edward Fitzvassal, you have heard the indictment
which has been preferred against you for the
awful crime of piracy,—to which indictment you
have pleaded guilty! Have you any thing to say
why sentence of death should not now be pronounced
against you?”

Fitzvassal remained silent.

“The sentence of the Court, then, is,” said the
Judge, “that you be conveyed back to the prison from
which you were taken, and from thence to the place

of execution, and that you be there hanged by the
neck until you are dead. And may the Lord have
mercy on your soul!”

The Court then made a sign to the officer, and
Fitzvassal was re-conducted to his solitary dungeon,
and there loaded with chains.

The day assigned for the execution of the sentence
was the fifth of June,—the place Green Island, where
Captain Nix and the three mariners first landed in
the harbor of Boston. In the interim, great exertions
were made for a pardon, or a commutation of
the sentence to one of banishment, but not even the
hope of a reprieve was afforded the prisoner.

The night previous to the day of execution, Fitzvassal
passed in solitude; he refused admittance to
all persons. He would not have a minister of religion,
for he declared that he knew well enough that
repentance without reformation would do him no
good.

That night was to him a time of bitter agony. It
was not so much that he cared for the pains of death,
—but to die a felon's death, and almost in the presence
of her he still adored, yea, hopelessly, jealously
worshipped, was more than he could endure without
his heartstrings tugging with the effort. “Oh God!”
thought Fitzvassal, “how terrible, yet how just are
thy retributions! Had I confided in thy providence;
my poor mother would not have been left to starve to
death in a cellar;—and I should not have been doomed

to this awful and disgraceful end. But I will not
die a felon's death—the name of Fitzvassal shall not
be disgraced by the record of such a fate—his body
shall not be dishonored by the scaffold!”

He sunk into a profound slumber before morning,
from which he was awakened by the jailor, who
came to bring him his breakfast, and attire him at
once for the gallows and the grave.

Fitzvassal begged to be excused from putting on
the dress till the last minute—and only an hour was
wanting, when he must be conveyed to the place of
execution. He requested to be left alone, and the
jailor withdrew.

“My hour is now come!” said he to himself—taking
from his bosom the agate which Nameoke had
given him, containing the deadly poison—“My hour
is now come!—Thanks, Nameoke, for this cordial!—
Grace, I drink to thee!”

As he spoke, he drained the deadly fluid from the
hollow stone—and that instant the death-bell told
one!

“It is finished!” sighed Fitzvassal, “in a few
minutes, I shall be removed from the trials and the
calamities of life!—Life! God of mercy, may I not
live forever!”

The bell now struck again, and as the jailor was
approaching to indicate to the prisoner the necessity
of making the most of the few moments that remained
to him—Nameoke, breaking through the guard

without, by the energy and decision of her manner,
cried out—

“Let Nameoke pass! white-man stand back! she
comes on an errand of mercy!”

As she spoke these words, she forced her way into
the dungeon—and stood before Fitzvassal in all the
majesty of beauty.

The condemned buccaneer for the moment forgot
his misery, as his attention was arrested by this
extraordinary apparition.

“Nameoke!” he exclaimed.

“Son of the Vassal!” cried the sibyl, “be not surprised
at the coming of Nameoke—you are free!
Nameoke has brought you a pardon! It would
have been read to you at the scaffold—but Nameoke
chose to bring it herself.—Son of the Vassal, you are
free!”

“Impossible!” replied Fitzvassal, “Nameoke you
are mad!”

“Well! well!” she exclaimed, “Nameoke may be
mad—her brain is sick—sick, and it whirls even now
fearfully; but mad or not mad, Edward Fitzvassal,
you are free!”

And as she uttered these words, she looked the
sibyl in her excitement, while she confirmed her declaration
by exhibiting the sign manual of the governor,
who, in consideration of the signal services
of the buccaneer, and the intervention of Mr. Temple,
Horace Seymour, and even the tears of Grace

Wilmer herself, with the superadded request of Captain
Nix, had published a full pardon of the offender.

As Fitzvassal realized the truth of her words, his
heart sunk within him, while a deadly faintness
spread over his frame.

Nameoke saw his condition, and asked—

“What ails the son of the Vassal? is he not well?
does he not believe Nameoke?”

“Nameoke!” murmured the unhappy man, pointing
to the talisman she had given him, “may the
great God reward you! but the pardon comes too late
—that poison!”

“No! no! the Great Spirit forbid!” exclaimed
Nameoke, as the reality burst upon her—“the son
of the Vassal has not taken the poison!”

“Yes!” groaned Fitzvassal, “and my remaining
moments are few—Oh Nameoke, for the love of God,
give up thy enchantments—they are opposed to the
will of heaven, and only mock us to our eternal
ruin. Nameoke! your hand—I am dying!”

As he spoke he sunk upon the floor of the dungeon,
and Nameoke bent over his prostrate body.

“Alas!” she cried, “Nameoke would have saved
thee, Edward Fitzvassal!—but Nameoke is the
death of all she loves! farewell, oh unhappy! may
the Great Spirit receive his child!”

Fitzvassal opened his eyes upon her, and groaning,
closed them again in death.