University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

As will readily be inferred, the feeble and exhausted
condition of the dying culprit prevented him
from entering into the minutiæ of his past life and
conduct.

The communication of the worthy chaplain renders
the disclosure somewhat connected and intelligible;
but the reader will be compelled to refer to the
earlier pages of this history for the re-production of
those facts which relate to the career of Maddox,
subsequent to the arrest and suicide of Glenthorne.

Some disconnected allusions to certain dark transactions
in his own after-history are, indeed, furnished,
but the strength of the criminal was unequal to
the task of completing the gloomy picture.

The communication of the chaplain embodies the
following recital:—

Confession of James Maddox, a prisoner under
sentence of death.

“My birth-place is the city of Boston, in the State
of Massachusetts.

“When about the age of twenty-one, I became
introduced to Elbert Borrowdale, the son of wealthy
parents, recently deceased, in the State of New
Hampshire.

“This individual was conspicuous for his bold
defiance of those moral restraints which are justly
regarded with such reverence by all reputable
members of society. A few years my senior, and
vastly my superior in abilities and mental energy, he
soon acquired an ascendency over my feeble nature,
which was exercised with despotic sway.

“With his only brother, a gentleman possessed
of a highly cultivated mind and unspotted reputation,
he had entered into a violent personal controversy.

“This feud was increased to a deadly hatred by
the marriage of his brother with a beautiful and accomplished
young lady, of whom Elbert was enamoured.

“A fruitless attempt on the virtue of this lady,
subsequent to her marriage with his brother, rendering
him amenable to punishment, he hastily fled
to the Canadas, and the better to elude pursuit, assumed
the name of Rupert Glenthorne.

“I was the companion of his flight. On his return,
I became his accomplice in the abduction of
the only child of his brother, a beautiful boy of not
more than two years of age. This infamous crime
was perpetrated in mid-winter, the child being
snatched from the arms of its nurse, while she was

amusing herself on a sheet of ice, near the residence
of the child's parents.

“The shrieks of the nurse alarmed Borrowdale,
who seized her by the throat and plunged her head-long
into a hole in the ice—while I was removing
the infant to our sleigh, which stood at a little distance,
shielded from observation by a thick wood.

“We fled, and succeeded in effecting our escape
with the innocent victim of my relentless associate's
vengeance.

“In the murder of the nurse I had no direct
agency, but conscience, alas! is my accuser—nor
will her voice be silent.

“But I feel that the lamp of life is fast waning,
and must hasten to a close.

“Borrowdale, who still retained the assumed name
of Glenthorne, and myself separated, nor did we
again meet until our last interview in the city of
New-York, when the miscreant, by committing a
violent assault on my person, provoked a disclosure
which caused his arrest, and subsequently induced
him to rush, uncalled for, into the presence of his
Creator.”

The prisoner here became exhausted, and lay for
some time in a stupor, from which he was at length
aroused by the application of restoratives.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, “how fearfully do my
crimes rush on my terror-stricken soul! That I
have, in part, paid the penalty of my abduction of
an innocent child, you will learn when I inform

you, that he is no other than Sydney Clifton!
through whose instrumentality I am now within
the walls of this gloomy prison! If he doubts, let
him examine the trinkets which were on his person
when stolen from his parents. They will serve to
identify him if his parents are still living. I have
much more to say—but this room is dark—and I
feel the chills of death freezing the blood in my
veins. Oh for a few hours to confess my own
black transgressions! Alas! alas! they rise up in
judgment against me—a dread and dismal array!

“But see! yonder stands Rupert Glenthorne beckoning
me to his side! and, horror! horror! there
approaches the traveller I murdered in cold blood that
I might possess his treasure! Away ye ghastly
messengers of vengeance! Away! away! take me,
oh! take me from this den of demons!”

Thus closed the life of this miserable criminal.